Disclaimer: An amazingly talented set of people have the rights to each of the characters I mention in this fic. Obviously, I'm not so amazingly talented, so please don't sue me for their use. Gaiman has all the rights to the title.
Timeline: Begins a few hours after the end of Season 5/Season 2
Spoilers: MAJOR spoilage for "The Gift"
Rating: PG-13 (one or two bad words... sorta...)
Dedication: *big, tickle-y snake kisses* to all the lovely people who sent me feedback for "Three Words."
Distribution: SalFic, The BAFFA, and anyone else who wants it. Just tell me where it goes, so I can gawk at it.
Notes: The title comes from Neil Gaiman's _Sandman_ graphic novels. If you're haven't read them, go to your nearest book store/comic store/library and get to it! Also, this one is COMPLETELY UNBETA'D. I didn't even read it twice. This is just "elevator music fic" -- its only purpose is to tide people over until I can get my act together and post more "Three Words."
Summary: The standard post-"The Gift"-Angel-broodage.

Dawn was coming.

Twice over, actually.

The rising light in the east told Angel that the more universal dawn was approaching, and the ringing in his blood told him that the human Dawn was, too. The two sensations pulled at him. The encroaching daylight came with a primal urge to flee, which Angel ignored easily. The feeling of Dawn coming was so much like the Other, of She Who Shall Not Be Named, that Angel could almost allow himself to believe that it was her. Almost.

But the sensation was weaker; Dawn’s blood was not laced with the fiery passion that Hers was. The instinctive knowledge that his mate was coming to him did not pound in his veins, nor tickle his senses.

Dawn and She had shared the same blood -- that was why She had died – but there was a difference.

Angel put his hand out of the window, and felt the first rays of light strike his fingertips. The sensation was only slightly unpleasant, because the light was so weak. Just like the pull of Her blood was there, inside of him, but too weak.

He'd wondered if She'd had bled when She'd died. He'd wondered if his grandchilde had smelled the precious liquid seep out of Her, and was tempted to drink. Angel’s hand curled into a fist. Spike had been the last one to truly smell Her, in Her glory.

// Not me. //

The thought resonated in his mind, and all his other thoughts were quiet.

The bare fact was, Spike had been there, and Angel – the one who supposedly loved Her, was devoted to Her, ached for Her – was not. He'd wasn’t even in the same dimension.

He hadn’t even felt Her die.

The sun had risen just a few degrees higher in the sky, and the intensity of the light was now enough to make his flesh smoke. Angel inhaled the scent absently. It was the scent of dead flesh, burning away.

Maybe they would cremate Her. Angel thought that might be appropriate; as she lived -- a bright, beautiful flame -- so should she be put to rest.

Dawn was sneaking towards him. He felt ready for both of them.

There was a knock on the door.

"Angel?" Cordelia’s whisper seeped through the wooden panel.

Angel didn’t respond. He opened his extended fist, and turned the palm into the sunshine. The newly exposed flesh sizzled and reddened. The door opened, hesitatingly. He supposed Cordelia feared what she might find on the other side. Maybe she expected Angel Bits spread across the room, and a little note on the center of his bed: ‘Couldn’t live without my Beloved, Goodbye, A.’

Angel allowed himself a rather sad imitation of a smirk. // Nothing so dramatic, ‘Delia. // He thought to himself. // Just a dead guy with his arm out the window. //

The brunette slipped inside of the room, but just barely. She breathed a little sigh of relief to see that he was still ‘alive,’ if a bit on the well-cooked side.

"Giles called. He said that… that no one can find Dawn. They’re in a panic, over there." Cordelia cleared her throat. "Willow’s downstairs, pacing. She wanted to know if you knew where Dawn is."

Angel said nothing for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was without inflection. It was normal, conversational Angel-voice. It disturbed Cordelia in a way that she couldn’t immediately identify.

"Dawn is coming," Angel announced.

"Here?" Cordy asked. Angel chose not to clarify.

"I’ll go tell Willow," she said, decisively. With one hand on the doorknob, on her way out, Cordelia paused and spoke again. "Angel… you know that, if you need to talk… or anything at all… Wes, Gunn, and I are here to help. Fred, too. I think."

She left.

Angel was alone again, but not really. There were too many voices in his head for him to feel "alone."

There was a voice screaming at him, telling him he had been a fool for ever leaving Her side. This voice told him that he could have done something, made the final difference, in the end. Another voice was the slightly more sinister voice of his demon, laughing in its cage, gathering all of Angel’s destructive tendencies around him like weapons.

This voice was the voice of seduction; it told him exactly how easy it would be to give in, and let go of his pain in a swell of Evil.

Another voice was the voice of reason, calmly informing him that he had done everything possible to safeguard Her life. Reminding him that he gave up humanity so that She could live a little longer, and he should be thankful for the time that She had. This was the quietest voice of all. Eventually, it fell into silence.

His hand caught on fire. Angel blinked at the sight impassively, wondering if he should pull his hand back inside. He decided it wasn’t worth the effort.

"You know, you can be full of shit sometimes, Angel."

It was Her voice.

It was another voice in the cacophony of multiple urges playing out like an orchestra of banshees in his mind. He listened to it casually, and considered it, just as he considered all of the others.

"Are you ever going to pull in your hand, or do you prefer your skin extra crispy?" Her again, this time clearer in his mind, as if she was standing right behind him. "Personally, I like you pretty rare. Or, not cooked at all."

There was a light humor in Her voice that flowed into him. He pulled his hand out of the sunlight, almost automatically, and used his unburned hand to close the blinds over the window. It was like even imagining Her voice was enough to give him more energy, more strength.

"That’s because you’re not imagining me."

Angel was almost amused; now he was imagining saying that he wasn’t imagining. Maybe this was how insanity started, when one of the voices tells you you’re sane.

"Stop being so morose. Turn around, Angel."

Her sweet voice, and the way his name flowed from her lips. It was so perfect, so lifelike that Angel almost doubted that he could make it up in his mind.

He decided to listen to the voice.// After all, sanity is over-rated. //

Angel turned around and She was there, smiling at him. She wasn’t dressed in a flowing, virginal white dress. She didn’t glow, or shimmer, or wave in an unseen breeze. She was dressed normally, perhaps even a bit carelessly, with Her hair pulled back into a simple ponytail and Her shoes surprisingly practical.

She regarded him knowingly, the way she always did when she caught him brooding. She was leaning against the foot of his bed.

"Wow. I finally developed an actual imagination, after 100 years of lacking one. Wonderful timing," Angel muttered to himself.

The apparition in front of him appeared to laugh. "I always thought that your poetic soul made up for anything lacking in the imagination department. But, if you’re wondering, my current appearance was my choice, and not yours."

"You’re a figment of my imagination, so even when you say that, you’re proving that I do have one."

"Well, you’re right, I suppose." She stopped smiling, briefly. "I guess we’ll just have to have our chat this way. I can only talk to you if you don’t believe. It’s like Wile E. Coyote – he only falls down when he realizes he’s high in the air." Her smile reappeared. "But you probably don’t get that pop culture reference. Which is the point."

Angel grew confused at this point, but She barreled on.

"Anyway, I wanted to tell you that I love you, because I certainly haven’t had a chance to say that often enough. And then I wanted to tell you not to grieve for me."

Angel was silent. Some part of him, apparently, thought that he shouldn’t mourn the loss of the only thing that he had ever truly loved. This disconcerted him, when it felt as though his entire body burned for Her, and the roots of his soul bled for Her loss.

"Why? Why shouldn’t I grieve?" he wondered aloud, honest confusion coloring his voice.

The figure that looked like Her regarded him seriously, as if judging his readiness for the information she possessed. "I don’t want you to grieve because I’m still here. I’m in Dawn… in Willow and Giles and Xander … in the spirit of the Slayer… and in you. I won’t leave you, as long as you remember me. But they’re going to need you to comfort them, to help them with their pain, just like you always helped me. Which is why I need you to be the strong one, and not mourn."

Even coming from Her ethereal lips, it sounded like a useless platitude.

Angel turned away from the apparition’s gaze. He was willing to allow anyone else in the universe to say these things to him, to make themselves feel like they were comforting him, but it was too much to hear it come from Her.

Perhaps that was why his mind chose to have Her say it.

He wished that this figment would leave him alone to brood, but he couldn’t muster the strength to send her away. It had been many long months since he could feel Her presence, even if it was only a re-hashed memory at the moment. Angel felt equal measures of pain and joy in having Her near, even in this form, and both emotions brought enough pressure onto his tired heart that he was actually surprised he didn’t burst into a cloud of dust on the spot.

"Angel." Her voice called him back from the swirling vortex of feeling, and despite himself he looked up at Her.

"Will you promise not to mourn me?" She asked.

Angel’s eyes began to sting, and two little trails of wetness trickled down his cheeks. Under normal circumstances, he might have wondered at the miracle of vampire tears, but these were the farthest from normal circumstances, so he barely noticed them.

"That is one thing I can never promise you, my love," he responded on a whisper.

Her hand -- glowing just noticeably now, as if lighted by the coming dawn – reached out to wipe away his tears, but stopped before actually reaching his face. She seemed to catch Herself, seemed to remember that She was merely a hallucination.

As the hand hovered in front of him, he noticed the small, silver ring that graced Her right ring finger. It was a beautiful, familiar Claddagh, with the heart pointed inwards. It meant She belonged to someone.

She smiled, softly, before dropping Her hand back to Her side.

"I didn’t think I could convince you." She shook Her head, "but I had to try."

The figure stepped closer to him, holding Herself directly in his personal space, but not quite touching him. She looked up into his face, watching for a reaction as She spoke. "Mourn me quickly, then, okay? Do what you have to, then let me go and move on." On his doubtful look, She pleaded, "at least *try*, Angel. For me."

He looked into Her stormy blue-green eyes and realized that, as always, he couldn’t say ‘no’ to Her. And there was no harm in *trying* the impossible, was there?

He nodded, slowly.

Her face lit into a brilliant smile, and Angel’s heart felt like it exploded in his chest. Her smile was even more breathtaking than usual, as if someone had harnessed the light and glory of every sunrise and sunset he had missed in two-hundred-plus years as a vampire, and affixed them to the power of Her smile. It was a floodlight that swept over him, catching his very soul in his mouth with its beauty, and passed on.

By the time Angel realized he had instinctively shut his eyes against the glow, and opened them again, he also realized two things: She was gone, and dawn was here. Both Dawns.

He turned around smoothly, casually wiping away the tears from his cheeks.

Angel opened the door to his room and looked down at Dawn Summers, her hair out long and unkempt, dressed in an odd velvet dress that looked very far from the latest California fashions. Her face was puffy with tears almost beyond recognition, and her hand was raised as if she was about to knock.

She blinked up at him owlishly, still trying to process the fact that the door was open.

Silently, Angel opened his arms, and welcomed Dawn into his life.

* * * * *

It was many months later before things began to calm down again. The LA crew and the Scoobies melted together in a circle of pain in the wake of the Slayer’s death. Faith got her parole about a week after her sister Chosen One made her sacrifice, and, together with Angel and Spike, they pounded at the demons in Sunnydale (both physical and emotional) until their population was once again controllable.

During the last few weeks of October, all of the members of the circle of pain found themselves, if not healed, at least past the hardest steps on the path towards recovery. Dawn was finally past the need for a 24-hour suicide watch. Willow finally began to cry only once or twice a day, instead of the entire time. Their lives began to run as they normally would, on the Hellmouth.

Xander and Anya, feeling the need to move on from death, decided on the date for the marriage. Giles, perhaps the most irrevocably bruised member of the Sunnydale crew, sold The Magic Shop and its painful memories, and announced that he would be returning to England by the end of the year. He made it clear that it was not a permanent move, and the rest of his ‘family’ understood that he needed to get away for a while.

The members of the Angel Investigations detective agency felt it was time to return to work, though they all agreed that they should stay in touch.

There would be frequent visits back to the Hellmouth, on the weekends. The newly penitent Faith, now very much a whole Slayer, earned some measure of forgiveness from Scoobies and LA’ers both with her hard work.

By the time the demons released by Glory’s ritual had been mostly eliminated, everyone was grudgingly willing to admit that Sunnydale needed a Slayer, and Faith was not totally inappropriate for the job. Angel and Spike were both strong advocates for her continued life on the Hellmouth, Angel because he believed in the power of her redemption, and Spike because of the growing respect he felt for her. Spike eventually came to realize that, for the second time in his life, he had fallen in love with the Slayer. He never announced his love to her, however, and vowed to help her defy Fate, and live longer than any Slayer had before.

Two days before November began, the AI crew packed to leave the mansion on Crawford Street, where they had been staying off-and-on since May. At Angel’s request, Gunn, Wesley, and Cordelia went early in the morning, and took his gear with them. Wesley left Angel his motorcycle and a cell phone, so that they could ensure that he followed them at sunset. Their concern for his mental and physical health was clear in their voices, and in the nervous looks they still occasionally cast each other.

Angel knew that they had nothing to fear. He didn’t want to kill himself in Her name, and his sanity was remarkably intact. He spent the entire day wandering around the mansion, touching everything he could remember Her touching, sniffing for faint traces of Her specific scent.

It was sunset before he realized that he had been saying goodbye to Her, and not just to Sunnydale.

The cell phone Wesley had given him rang promptly the moment it was dark enough for him to travel outdoors.

Angel flicked open the phone. "Angel."

"So, you’re on your way, right?" Cordelia’s voice asked.

The dark-haired vampire nodded, still slightly reeling from the fact that he was even considering letting Her go. And the fact that it felt right to do so.

"Angel?" the voice in the phone piped up, concerned.

Angel realized that, of course, she had been unable to see his nod. "Yeah, Cordy. I’ll see you in about two hours, okay?"

There was a brief, relieved pause. "Okay. See you then."

Angel cut the connection and tucked the cell away in his pocket. He picked up his motorcycle helmet (because even vampires are not fans of brain damage), and strolled to the main doorway, memories of Buffy whirling around in his mind. He was surprised at how many of them were now positive memories.

As he opened the door, the faint light of sunset caught on his right hand. The light glinted off the silver Claddagh that surrounded his ring finger, and Angel was instantly reminded of that night in May when he had seen the same thing on Her beautiful fingers.

Angel tucked his helmet under one arm and slowly walked back inside the mansion. He crouched down on the floor and contemplated his ring and Her death for a long moment.

"Goodbye, Buffy," he whispered, saying Her name for the first time since Her death. He took off the ring and placed it carefully on the floor of the main room, where he had both gone to and returned from Hell. Then, he turned around, put on his helmet, and set off for LA.

Angel didn’t look back. He didn’t see the flash of blinding light that filled the room, centered in the ring he left behind. Angel didn’t hear the crash and thump of a small body hitting the cement floor from a few feet in the air, or smell the sulfur of the scorch marks from the violent jump between dimensions.

On the floor of the mansion on Crawford Street, a very naked, very alive Buffy Summers blinked in confusion.

*eg*

I have a possible sequel in mind, but I may not get around to writing it.

Thoughts are appreciated.

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