RATING: PG - couple curse words.
SPOILERS: Through Sanctuary/New Moon Rising.
SUMMARY: Buffy goes to Angel to talk ...
COUPLES: B/A
NOTES: I found a flower-language dictionary online. =) Hopefully this'll go through, MailandNews wasn't working and Juno sometimes doesn't. Grrr.
DEDICATION: For all my fellow B/A-shippers out there - don't give up hope! Remember, write your letters. *g* This is totally unbetaed ...

The sun was just setting, painting the sky a beautiful pink and purple, when Buffy tried the doorknob. She had checked several times to make sure the black convertible was not there before finally going up to the door. Finding the door locked she cursed, yanking a pin out of her hair and jamming it into the lock. As would be expected, the door didn't open.

Footsteps on the stairs startled Buffy back to reality and she jumped, nearly dropping everything in her arms. She sidled into a shadow, watching in surprise as Cordelia banged on the door and then pulled out a key and let herself in. "Angel! I need those papers, pronto!"

Buffy waited patiently, holding her breath, as Cordelia wandered around the apartment, searching for her boss, one would assume. Finally, she came back out, shaking her head and muttering something inaudible to herself. In a true-to-herself manner, though, she left the door unlocked, and once Buffy was sure she was back upstairs, she slipped inside, prepared to put her plan into action.

*****

Angel made his way down the steps wearily. In addition to having to wait until the sunset to come back home, he had had to listen to Cordelia yammer his ear off about vacations and demons and other stuff he hadn't really been paying attention to. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the slim gold key, stopping in front of his door. His eyes widened when he saw it, and he did a double take.

On the door was a solitary red rose, taped with a note. Angel dropped the key back into his pocket and slowly removed the flower and the crisp paper. It was written in pink pen, in a handwriting that was vaguely familiar, but Angel was unable to place it.

Angel -

This is for you ... go look on your table.

Bewildered didn't really cover Angel's current state of mind, but he opened the door and walked briskly to the table, hitting the light switch on his way, still holding the thornless rose.

On the table was an expensive-looking vase brimming with two types of flowers that Angel instantly recognized as hyacinths and lily-of-the-valleys. Astonished, he gently stroked the petals of one of the white flowers, and his hand hit another card.

Angel -

Do you know the meaning of flowers? They all mean something different ... something I want to tell you. Check your bedroom ...

It was the same pink pen, the same script that Angel only remembered for the swooping i's and was unable to place. Beginning to feel like he was on a scavenger hunt and hoping desperately that he wouldn't find Kate in his bed, he dropped the rose onto the table and moved towards the room. At one point in time, he had known the meaning of any kind of flower a person could name, but over time he had forgotten a lot of them. Shrugging off the thought, he pushed open his bedroom door.

His heart leapt into his throat at the site of Buffy curled up on his bed, sleeping peacefully. Her hair fanned out on his pillow, and she was wearing a simple jean-and-tee outfit.

"Buffy."

At the sound of her name, Buffy's eyes flew open and she sat up. "Angel. I ... I fell asleep."

"What are you doing here?"

"I need to talk to you."

"I think we've done enough talking to last us a lifetime. Or two," he added sourly, fully intending to order her home again. The desperate look marring her face and the tears gathering in her eyes were the only things stopping him.

"I made the biggest mistake ... ever ... the other day, Angel."

"I'm well aware of that," Angel told her shortly, waiting for her to continue impatiently.

"I need to explain why I did what I did."

"There's no explanation, Buffy, and I don't care to hear your lousy excuses."

"The hyacinths mean 'I'm sorry, please forgive me'," Buffy spoke up in a soft voice. "And the lily-of-the-valleys mean humility, return to happiness, and 'you've made my life complete'. You have, Angel. You've made my life complete."

"Why are you here, Buffy?"

"Because I need to talk to you ... and I need to apologize. I realize now how wrong I was in what I did. And I'm so incredibly sorry ... I had no business getting upset over Faith and it was wrong of me to rub Riley in your face."

"Is that his name?" Angel asked coolly. "Maybe you should go back to him now."

"Maybe not," Buffy countered evenly. "I care about Riley a lot. But I'll never love him like I loved you. I wanted you to hurt as badly as I hurt, and that's why I said all that stuff, even though it wasn't true. I ... I trust you, and I know ... knew you."

"You think I don't hurt everyday, Buffy, without you rubbing it in? You think it doesn't kill me to be without you?"

"You left me," Buffy reminded him, a tear falling onto her jeans.

"I left you because that was what was best, and obviously it worked out just fine for you!"

"Don't you ever say that," Buffy snarled. "Don't you ever say that it worked out fine for me. I miss you every day with everything in me no matter what kind of show I can put on."

"Do you have anything else to say?"

"I had a talk with Willow ... about guys, and ... um, girls." At Angel's startled expression, she quickly added. "N-Not me ... her. Anyways, that's not the point. The point was that she asked me why I was doing this to you, and to Riley, and to me ... and I had to ask myself that. One reason was to hurt you."

"And the other?" Angel prodded her.

"Riley made me feel loved. He made me feel ... adequate, and normal, and that was something I longed for."

"See? All the reasons I told you a year ago." Angel gently sat on the edge of the bed.

"No ... NO! That's NOT it, it's NOT what you said. I don't have a normal relationship with Riley like you suggested ... I'm ME, I never WILL. But in his arms, I can find comfort, and ... well, I guess he doesn't really have much to compare me to, because I sorta took his virginity ..."

"Isn't that just great," Angel snapped, his voice raising.

"Don't you raise your voice at me," Buffy hissed. "Don't you act all 'oh that's wonderful' when you don't really think it is. Don't start lying to me now just because you're upset that Riley makes me feel good about myself when you didn't!"

"See? There you go again, rubbing it in my face that I can't have you. And I'm sorry I didn't make you feel good about yourself. Maybe you should have said something when we were still together." He tried to hide how much her words hurt him.

"What was I supposed to SAY? 'Oh, hey, you remember all that stuff you said to me after you lost your soul? I'm still not over it, so let's reopen the wounds!'"

"Sometimes that's what you have to do, Buffy! Besides, you seem to have gotten pretty good at that."

"FINE!" Buffy shrieked. "FINE! You want to know where this is all stemming from? YOU! YOU left me and fed me a bunch of lame excuses about why. I don't care if they were true or not, you did! You think I hurt you? You hurt me, Angel! You hurt me SO badly. I gave you my virginity - that was the LAST thing I had left that was completely mine and I gave it up to YOU and you threw it back in my face, again and again! And JUST when I was finally beginning to have a LITTLE self confidence, to think MAYBE what you said wasn't true, you LEFT me. One night you told me we'd be all right and then next you told me you were LEAVING. Do you think that didn't hurt? Is that what you think? And yet I can ADMIT I was wrong. I KNOW I've been a bitch lately, Angel, but I don't want any bit of my old personality left with my new boyfriend. There's a part of me locked away for you, God only knows why, and I can't let any tiny bit of that come out around Riley or ANYONE or I might breakdown and die."

Angel was stricken at her tearful admission. He hadn't realized that what had happened with Angelus had left such deep scars on her. He gently reached for her, but she jerked away, hastily wiping tears from her eyes.

"Don't touch me," she demanded hoarsely. "I don't want you touching me."

"Buffy," he began carefully, "I know we never talked about what happened when I lost my soul. My memory at first was hazy, and by the time I remembered, you seemed too happy for me to want to hurt you again by bringing it up."

She looked at him sharply. "What were you telling me about sometimes you have to?"

Angel sighed. "I know what I said. I think the saying is 'do as I say, not as I do'."

Buffy shifted to face him and Angel finally got a good look at her bruised lip.

"I ... I'm sorry," he murmured.

Buffy shrugged it off. "Whatever ... I deserved it ... I just wasn't expecting it."

"I think we need to have that talk now."

"What talk?" Buffy feigned innocence.

"We need to have a talk about everything that's happened since I left ... what triggered it .... and what happened before."

"I don't know that I want to." She stood up. "It was stupid of me to come here. I'm going to leave."

"Please don't," Angel asked pleadingly.

Buffy stood up, moving slowly towards the door, and he followed. "I can't ... I can't deal with this." She moved into the kitchen, leaning against the counter, not facing up. "There's another reason for you. I can't deal. I could NEVER deal."

Angel grabbed her arm and turned her to face him. "You're going to have to learn, Buffy. I don't know what's happened to you since I left, since I last saw you, but something happened and I can't stand to see the girl I loved turning out like this."

"You gave up all right to have a say when you walked away from me."

"Maybe so, but I don't like you doing this to yourself or anyone else. From what I can tell, you have become completely self-centered. And I realize now that the past is weighing heavy on you, and you need to talk to someone about that. You need to talk to ME about that. You can't possibly tell me you're happy with your current situation - all I have to do is look into your eyes to see that you're not."

"No. You know what? I'm not happy. I'm not happy with the way I am, but I'm one of those people that goes to wild extremes to hide it and try to fix it. And until I saw you again, until I saw Faith in your arms and thought you were with her, until that raging jealously coursed through me, I thought it was working. And then when I realized how good a job you were doing in helping her, I was mad at you. Because you had left me and made a perfect little life for yourself, and I was still home, secretly missing you and trying to hide it."

"I should have known," Angel whispered, and Buffy glared at him. "I meant that I should have known that there was something going on with you," he explained. "I should have remembered that when something big happens in your life, it's hard for you, like the summer after the master ..."

"Maybe you should have. But I should have remembered, too, and not spat in your face." Buffy walked over to the table, still complete with a vase and a rose, and sat on the top, fixing her eyes on the white and purple flowers.

"You know what he said wasn't true."

Buffy looked up sharply, her hazel eyes watering. "I don't know anything like that."

Angel sat next to her, mentally savoring the feeling of being this close to her and just talking, even if the subject matter was touchy. "None of it was true ... he said it because he knew what would hurt you."

"You're finally able to distinguish between you and him," Buffy marveled.

Angel nodded. "Don't changed the subject". He braced his hands on her upper arms. "You were so perfect ... so loving and trusting and willing. I could never ask for anything more."

Buffy didn't buy into his honest speech. "Look, you screwed your way around Ireland ... it was stupid of me to think that it would mean anything to you just because it did to me."

"Buffy. Look at me," Angel demanded firmly, turning her face so she was looking into his eyes. "You were perfect. I've had a lot of women ... but nothing compares to you, Buffy. Because you were the only one I loved, and that in itself made our time together perfect."

Buffy bit back tears, not meeting his eyes. "I thought I had moved past all that ... when you left, there was this little voice in my mind that kept saying, 'See? He doesn't want you' but I blocked it out after you got hurt. I spent the entire summer at the Dairy Queen .... which I balanced out with a kick-boxing class. Something for my pain, something for my anger, you know? By the time college started ... I thought I was okay. I wasn't even consciously aware that there was anything wrong, or that I felt anything was wrong. I still thought of you sometimes, like when I saw Willow and Oz holding hands in the hallway, but overall I was a lot better. And then I met Parker. He fed me all this bullshit about life, and I ate it up like a lost puppy. He pulled a use-and-lose on me, and I felt my world collapse all over again. I never really moved past that, even with my friends to help me pick up the pieces."

"He was a bastard," Angel growled.

Buffy shrugged and continued her desperate explanation - she wanted to finish it before she broke down and couldn't. "Then, you came around Thanksgiving ... and I could feel you. God, I broke down when someone just TALKED about you ... not in front of them, but I'd go back to my dorm and cry under the covers, night after night ... so having known you were actually THERE ... I don't know if it hurt more that you were there and didn't tell me or that you were there and I could feel you. Our little meeting back at your place gave nothing for closure."

Angel bit his lip. He knew if he said a word, the whole Thanksgiving saga would come spilling out, and that was not something he wanted happening, especially not with the current state of mind that Buffy was in.

"I already knew Riley, and after that it didn't take me long to throw myself head-first into a relationship I was totally unprepared for. I barely knew anything about him, we didn't agree on many things, but he was still there, and he was still comforting. And I was attracted to him ... physically. It didn't matter to me that we barely had any emotional connection, as long as I had someone there. In my mind, I would constantly compare him to you. After awhile, that stopped ... I don't know if that was because our relationship was mostly sexual or just because there IS no comparison, but I did manage to stop. And God, for so long that felt like an accomplishment. In some twisted way, I was able to convince myself that that meant I had moved on."

"But you hadn't?" Angel questioned oh-so-helpfully.

"But I hadn't," Buffy agreed softly. "Faith came ... and we switched bodies. I guess you know all about that ... she slept with him, in my body. And you saw how mad I was at her .... but I was also mad at him, for not being able to tell the difference. NO ONE could tell the difference. Willow's friend, who had never met EITHER of us, was the one who figured it out, and I just kept thinking to myself 'if Angel were here, this would have been over a long time ago'. But you weren't, and it wasn't. I had to face a lot of things after that ... and I didn't want to. I never talked to Riley about it. Sensing a pattern, huh?"

Buffy rested her head in her hands, taking a deep breath before finishing her confession. "When I came here ... and I saw her with you ... and I saw how well you were doing, I was mad, because I was so confused and hurt, and I blamed you for it because you had left me. I wanted so badly for you to hurt like I did, for you to feel the kind of pain that was gnawing at my heart, beat by beat. And no matter what I threw at you ... you were better and you were braver and you were stronger, and that made me all the madder. Twisted, isn't it? I knew Riley would get to you ... and I knew that if I made it sound like I never knew you or trusted you, that would hurt you all the more. And that was what I wanted. And that was why I said it. I know it was a stupid thing to do, and I thought I was going to make myself sick on the way home, but that didn't stop me, obviously." Buffy shrugged helplessly.

Angel stared at her for a moment and then drew her into his arms. "I had no idea ..."

"There was no way you could have," Buffy told him thickly. "I never told you ... I knew that if I did, you'd feel sorry for me, and I didn't want your pity."

"I brought it upon you, though ... I wish you would have told me earlier."

"No ... even if it did stem from way back when, it's NOT your fault. It's just as much my fault, because I didn't say anything. There was no way you could have known," she repeated. "I'm just ... I'm so SORRY for the way I've been acting ... I've been completely cruel to everyone, and to those I haven't, I've blatantly ignored them which isn't much better. Huge changes go on in my friends lives and I don't even notice the difference until they spell it out for me."

"You've been going through a lot. You made some mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes, Buffy, and you were able to admit yours, which takes a lot. You're such a strong person, such a survivor ... everytime I see you, I fall in love with you all over again."

At his tender words, his forgiving acceptance, tears began to fall from here eyes unabashedly. She tightened arms around his neck, whispering into his ear, "I told Riley about my past ... we broke up. Not just because of that ... but once I came to terms with everything, I realized it was unfair to him to be involved with him while I was still so completely in love with you."

"Oh, Buffy ..." Angel said in a whisper. "I'm so sorry I hurt you ... I knew my leaving you would hurt you, but I didn't know it would hurt that bad, or that you still had residual emotional scars."

"If you had known, would you have still done it?" Buffy asked, pulling out of his arms and standing up, her eyes not leaving his.

"I don't know," Angel responded honestly. "I wasn't in that situation, so I don't know."

"You're in it now. Are you going to leave me again?" Buffy asked, her eyes searching his, and Angel didn't know what to tell her. She turned away from him quickly, trying to hide her tears, though he knew she was crying. He always knew. Buffy picked up the rose and stroked a finger over the soft petals. "Red roses stand for love. Thornless mean love at first site. A single one means 'I still love you'. Did you know that, Angel? I looked it all up before I bought it."

Angel took the rose from her and stroked it under her chin and down her neck, making her shiver. "I always wanted to make love to you on a bed of roses."

Buffy lifted her eyes to read the expression in his. "You did?" she asked hoarsely.

Angel nodded seriously. "I wanted to read you poetry. I wanted to kiss every inch of your body. I wanted to hold you in my arms all night. I wanted to take care of you when you were sick. I wanted to argue over silly things like who's turn it was to do the dishes and then admit we were wrong and it was stupid and kiss and make up. I wanted to share my life ... or lack thereof ... with you."

"And that's what I wanted, too! So why can't we? One good reason, Angel, why we can't."

"Because of what's happened recently."

"BECAUSE of what's happened?!" Buffy repeated in disbelief.

"You have a lot of living ... experimenting ... learning ... left to do, and that's something you didn't get to do with me, and I'll be damned if I deny you that."

"I don't think that my style of learning is really worth pursuing," Buffy deadpanned bitterly.

"That's what learning is, Baby." Angel gently wiped the tears from her eyes with the pads of his thumbs.

"And what about you? Are you going to be doing some 'learning' to?"

"Not in terms of relationships. I have souls to save, redemption to work towards, and though I may never find it, I have to put my heart and soul into it." Angel pleaded with his eyes for her to understand.

Buffy nodded, choking back a sob. "Okay," she agreed hoarsely. She glanced over her shoulder at the door. "I guess I should go ... catch the bus, then."

Angel looked at his clock. "The bus doesn't run this late ... stay the night."

"Angel ... I ... I don't know ..."

"Shhhh." He put his finger over her lips and led her to his bedroom, slipping off her sandals for her and tucking her under the covers. He flipped out the light and was about to leave when Buffy's voice rang out.

"Please ... stay ..."

He was beside her in a heartbeat, taking her small hand in his. "What's wrong?"

"I just ... I want to feel you here, while I can ... because after I leave, I don't know how long it's going to be until I see you again ... I want something to remember ... please?" Her voice was tiny and uncertain.

Angel kissed her gently on the forehead. "Always."

He watched her until she fell asleep, and only then did he place a phone call to a late-night florist.

When Buffy woke up early the next morning, she found that in her sleep a single, thornless, yellow rose had been placed in her hand. She inhaled the scent and stood up, calling Angel's name.

"Right here," Angel told her groggily, getting up from the couch he had been sleeping on.

Buffy walked over to him slowly, the rose in one hand, and hugged him. "Friendship."

Angel nodded his agreeance, running his hand over her hair. "Until we can have more."

At his words, Buffy pulled back to look at him. She trailed her fingers lightly over his jaw as she asked her question. "Do you think, one day ... someday ... we'll be together again?"

"Only time will tell ... but I wouldn't say it's not an option. Fate's a funny thing ... you just never know."

Buffy found his words surprisingly comforting and she rested her head against his chest gently. "Thank you," she told him. "Thank you for the rose and for listening and for understanding and caring. Thank you for forgiving me ... and loving me ... and for your friendship, Angel, because that's so important to me."

Angel softly kissed her lips, pulling away before the kiss deepened. "You're welcome. And thank you ... for everything you mentioned ... for more ... for just being you." He walked over to the table, where a red rose was sitting next to the rose and vase Buffy had given him. He picked it up and presented it to her, and she took it with a smile, holding it with the yellow one so the stems crossed. "Flowers for someday," he explained.

"Someday," Buffy echoed, and for once, someday didn't seem that far away.

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