RATING: PG-13
SUMMARY: Set, um, Probably Season 8ish. Basically A few years from now, Angel is human, everyone is happy.
DEDICATION: To Amy, cuz she read it first, and she liked it :)
FEEDBACK: Is really nice, go on, I haven't written anything in awhile. Give me a happy, I promise not to turn all evil.

He left me for a better life five years ago. He turned back time to save my life four and a half years ago. He hit me to save my enemy four years ago. He comforted me when my mother died three and a half years ago. I died three years ago. His son was born two and a half years ago. He turned human a month ago. I was told he was alive two weeks ago. I'm going to see him in twenty minutes. He will be mine in four hours.

I may sound like a self assured conceited bitch when I say this, but I *will* get him back.

You probably have no clue what I'm really talking about, why I am in my best friend Willow's yellow four by four accompanied by her, her girlfriend Tara, and my other best friend Xander and his girlfriend, and my younger sister, driving to the beach in the middle of a sunny afternoon.

Well it's a long story, all revolving around one guy. The `him' I was talking about is Angel - as clichéd as it may sound he was, is, the love of my life. He was a vampire, with a soul, and I loved him. That is how simple it was. I wish. Our relationship was never what you'd call healthy, one of us was either evil, killing the other, or pretending we weren't in love with each other. Not to mention the first time we kissed he went all `Grrr'.

But now, eight years from when we first met and I knocked him over in a darkened alley, he's human, and we have a real chance. He told me in a letter, I was pretty angry at first. I mean, the most important thing that has ever happened to him and he tells me in a letter?!?! I replied in kind, with a very curt, short note wishing him well.

The next day I received an angry telephone call from Cordelia, an old school friend who now works with Angel at his detective agency - did I mention he was a PI? I don't think I did, well he is, he handles all the monsters in LA.

Cordelia told me that since receiving my letter Angel had locked himself in his room, "Like a besotted teenager" I think she put it as, brooding over the letter I sent him. I must admit, in my anger, maybe the letter I had sent him had been a little sharp. I explained to Cordelia I had been a little, or rather a lot, upset with the method Angel had used of informing his humanity. I told her I still loved him and I wanted to see him.

Then I called Angel. I told him I loved him and wanted to see him. My heart nearly shattered in joy when he told me he still loved me too. We wanted a private meeting, just the two of us, on a small secluded beach where we had met shortly after I had been brought back to life, but somehow, Cordy and Willow muscled in and now my friends and his friends are joining in with our `private, romantic, meeting'.

There are some steep steps leading down to the beach, I didn't think about these when I was dressing this morning. When I was dressing this morning I was thinking if Angel would like my bikini, whether my heeled pumps made my ankles look fat, and how long it would take to get out of said bikini if the need arose.

All this in mind, it is suffices to say that I am not dressed very practically.

When we reach the bottom of the steps I finally see him. He looks the same as he always has and yet completely different; he's not quite as pale as he was, and a little thinner than he used to be, but the rest of him is the same. Except his face, which is completely different, gone is the dark frown that creased his forehead, gone is the stoic, grim set mouth line, replaced with a bright smile and gleaming teeth.

He doesn't even notice my arrival, not visibly anyway, I know he can feel me, inside, the way I can feel him. I just watch him for a second, being happy, throwing a bread role at Cordelia as she squeals about her hair and he just laughs.

Then Xander coughs to announce our arrival, as if Angel didn't know I was here already, and Angel spins around and looks at me.

And you know all those clichés about time stopping, beautiful music, hearts racing - they're all wrong, our eyes lock, and it feels like time is sped up, I see everything that has ever happened between us,

I see everything around us right now, Cordelia and Xander hugging, Willow introducing Tara to Wesley, Dawn giggling with Conner, Anya is speaking with Gunn and Fred, and last of all. I see him. Really see him. As the man he is now, different to the man I knew, but still the same in the way he loves me and I love him. And that's enough.

It takes only a second before we speak, it's nervous, neither of us are sure what to say, "Hi," he greets me softly.

"Hi yourself," I whisper in this silly, giggly school girl voice.

Everybody else, I notice, is absorbed with each other, like they've forgotten us, probably on purpose, leaving us to do our thing… get the grief and angst out of the way.

He takes my hand and walks me away from the quiet hubbub of our friends' conversation - Fred is talking, everyone looks confused. I don't really notice, all I can feel is his hands wrapped around mine. It's weird, it's new, his hand is warm, slightly sticky and rough from the sand.

We turn a corner, out of sight from our friends and sit on rocks. We still haven't really said anything.

"This doesn't feel real." I murmur… what else could I say? I've never seen him in sunlight, only in dark shadows. I suppose I should be enjoying this moment, savouring it, but instead I just think how it unreal it seems.

"Does this?" He asks. I'm confused for a second, but then I understand what he means, he moves closer to me, touches my face with his hand, draws my face closer to his and touches my lips with his own. I'd like to say they feel exactly how I remember them, but I can't. Truth is, I don't remember. In the past, whenever his lips fused to mine, all conscious though fled my mind and I was left with one thing: Need.

His lips aren't quite as soft as they normally look, chapped from the heat and the wind and the seas. They taste of the salty seawater and his tongue is sugary like ice cream.

With his lips on mine, it doesn't feel like some heavenly dream, an unreal vision, but the most electrifying experience of my life, I feel alive, like everything is real. I think maybe I should tell him this but I don't, I just continue the kiss and let his tongue slip in my mouth alongside mine.

This is real, this is the only thing real, everything before now was just a dream building up to this moment.

When we draw apart he stares at me, and it's now that it feels like we're in the movies, he looks like a movie star, wind mussed hair, slightly swollen lips, gorgeous… The sea is crashing just to the left of us and there is a light breeze… You don't get moments like this but when you do you know just what they are: perfect. You know not to screw perfect moments up, sometimes, when moments are really good you say stupid inane things that screw everything up, but when moments are perfect you know just what to say.

"I love you." I whisper to him, and I know I said the right thing.

He looks back at me and smiles, completely and truly smiles and is happy, "I never stopped loving you." He whispers.

The perfect minute turns into a perfect five minutes, just staring, smiling slightly at each other, then the perfect five minutes turns into a perfect quarter hour and I finally kiss him again, and just like before his kiss is completely new to me.

But as every avid movie watcher knows, perfect moments never last forever, and in this case it's ruined by an annoying friend armed with a volleyball and insisting plea. Xander wants to play ball.

-oOo-

An hour later, after my team kicked Xander's ass at volleyball, we're all chilling out at the edge of the beach, feet just being brushed by the edge of the tide. It feels nice. What feels nicer is the fact that I'm resting against Angel, his warm body protecting me from the chill wind that is accompanying the on coming sundown.

Angel's smiling. I don't think he's stopped smiling all day, except when his lips are stuck to mine - but I'm not really going to complain about that, am I now?

The day wasn't how I premeditated it, the timings weren't how I planned them, but it was one thing I wanted: perfect, and all that I needed for perfect was Angel, and now I've got him, for now and a long, long time to come.

So it took a whole afternoon, not four hours like I planned, but I got the guy didn't I? He's mine. I love him and he loves me back and it all works out like a fairytale right?

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