DISCLAIMER: Not mine. *Yawn*
TIMELINE: Takes place after "Just Being"...Angel knows he and Buffy can do the nasty, but he hasn't told her yet. They're still staying at Cordy's while she's on her "payed vacation."
SPOILERS: Nope.
SYNOPSIS: Buffy and Angel finally hit the sheets. However, their bliss is interrupted by a visit from a not so happy Pod Buffy. Looks like Giles spilled the beans.
DISTRIBUTION: My little archive (), which will host this in about two weeks, and anyone who already has it ("Land of Denial", "Angst Boy Fanfic", yadda yadda) be my guest. Anyone else: drop me a line so I can say yes =)
AUTHOR'S NOTES: I've been getting *tons* of requests for a visit from Poddie from the start. Hope you all enjoy ... because of RL issues the next one isn't coming out for awhile. And I'm not talking about little RL issues, so please understand.
FEEDBACK: Please? On an actual serious note, you have no idea how much it means to me. >><<
RATING: PG-14

What is the meaning of our union? In layman's terms...what is that little twitch which grabs our insides and magnifies them one thousand times over? Why is it, exactly, that something beyond the laws of physics seems to overcome each breath I take when I see her brushing her hair... letting the moonlight refract off of her poised golden chain as she latches it in the shadows of Cordelia's bathroom?

I gave her that necklace. I can't help but smile in the most reverent manner at the sight of it, brushing alongside her shimmering jugular.

It was a few days past when I'd given it to her; when we had made love the entire evening ... dusk until dawn. She fell asleep against my body, clinging to every flexed muscle tapered against her, sweat and skin mixing and undulating to the chime of blood and magick. I watched her as she snored softly, letting myself stroke a hand delicately up and down her arm. I began at the shoulder, letting my finger rest against each pulsating vein. It dragged slowly down to her elbow... worshipping each pore, not neglecting an ounce of tender flesh for anything. The rhythm stretched against her skin, pressing into the depth of it, letting it's simple warmth burn me from the inside out.

They had let me return to heaven.

I told her the news a day after Wesley had bestowed it upon me. I needed time ... time to think, time to dream. Time to let each repercussion bounce to and fro against the conscious she had invented inside of me. There were so many possible destinations, so many pains and sobs that could far too easily be acquired. I can even chuckle at it now ... my stance was complete and absolute in every thundering portion of what she and I were together.

I wasn't going to tell her.

I took a walk, a short and succint journey flowing against my duster with it's rain and wind...the thunder of crackling storms an insignificant glitch compared to the speed my mind acted upon that evening. And yet it wasn't the sorrow of a broken heart, nor the terror of a bad decision. It was a bewitching guilt... the knowledge that my weak and crumbling resolve wouldn't be able to deny my small goddess anything she desired from now until the supernatural knowledge of eternity. I loved her more than any cliched romance song, sonnet of moon nor stars,...sexual attraction through every first love in any time or nation. I loved her soul, loved the existence of the air she breathed and the heart that beat inside of her. I'd die for a laugh...a whiff of shampoo...a quick glance from her care. We weren't two separate entities any longer. We were two glowing bodies, desperate and screaming out with the energy our desire and unconditional adoration created...rubbing our bodies against one another in the hopeful dream of a sacred union we craved every second of every day. To complete one another. To be home.

I told her that night.

"Are you ok?" I whispered softly into the air, fearful that my frankness of the truth had offended her.

"Right as rain" she replied quickly, a nervous smile finding its way to her lips, "It's just...wow," she laughed, curling a ringlet of hair behind one ear with a quick flick of the neck, "So we can ... you and I can ... I mean ... you know?"

I smiled tenderly at her. I was fully aware that this would only be her second experience with a man; her second experience of allowing a lover to touch her, to view the bare flesh of her perfectly sculpted body. To die inside of her. "Only if you want to," I assured with a gentle tone of sound.

Her eyes glistened up at me, raw desire overcoming her entire stance, "Angel ... please don't take this the wrong way. But ... but last time, with the soul-yanked-out-of-body-evil-monster gig? What if the text is wrong?"

"Wesley and I studied it for hours in detail. Its ... its legitimate. Buffy, if you want to take this slowly, then that's perfectly..."

She snorted an interruption, fiddling with the hem of her shirt, "I, I don't *want* to take things slow. I'm just a little ..."

"What?"

"Forget it ... its kinda embarrassing."

I crossed the living room, sitting carefully down beside her. After a moment of registering the strength of our presence, I slowly took her hand into my own, stroking in lightly, "Buffy ... you can tell me *anything*. We're partners in this."

A small tear slipped onto the round of her cheek, an adoring smile gracing every sparkle of expression, "You don't know what it's like for me to hear you say that."

"You don't know what its like for me to see you smile."

She curled up closer, blinking into my eyes, "What you said ... after you changed. About how I ...."

"Oh my God," I stood up in a haste, self-hatred stabbing repeatedly into my gut. I remembered every moment of it...the entire speech mocking my soul inside a repentant head, "Oh, god Buffy ..."

"Look, I don't want any pity compliments, ok? It's not exactly like I've had much practice."

Her words squeezed the joy out of me in a slow stinging torture. If only she knew ... if only she could grow remotely aware of the wonder that our union had been. I wasn't completely sure if I'd be able to adequately explain it, "You were...amazing. I saw heaven through you that night ...I saw something nobody else had ever given me in all my years. Total, unconditional love. You have to trust me on this. I would never ... I would never lie to the sole of my existence."

She looked into me ... really looked ... and whispered into my embrace, "Will you help me?" she questioned coyly, lubricating the most honest innocence I'd ever witnessed.

My body leapt in response.

"Every step of the way."

What a glorious job it had been. Keeping her satisfied, watching every inch of her body contract with pleasure. A smile of sheer brilliance glued in wonder against her world, lapping up every second of it.

"That was nice," she had purred the next morning, turning her body surely against my own naked flesh, "Hey" she smiled into my mouth, our lips dancing to a harmonious greeting.

"How'd you sleep?", I asked gently, stroking her hair against the cool pastures of a lustrous bare back.

"Like a very happy rock," she grinned, nuzzling against my neck. She graced my throat with a few glorious butterfly kisses, proceeding to sink against me in exhaustion, "So, are we allowed to do this on a fairly regular basis?"

I chuckled, giving her a small squeeze, "Whenever you want. I'm subject to your every command," I teased, leaning against the crown of her hair.

"This is so...different. It's like, a *totally* different kind of relationship. You know?"

"Yeah, it is," I agreed, watching her take in breath after breath.

"I mean, it's a whole new world for us. Like I'm giving you this huge part of me or something."

I cocked my head in concern, "Are you sure we're not moving too fast?"

"Angel," her voice sang in mock annoyance, turning around to face me like a young child, "You don't give up, do you? Sometimes I think you *don't* wanna make love to me."

I growled playfully, relishing in each giggle as I crushed her to my body, smothering her with kisses, "I wouldn't go that far," I whispered, fixing her hair out of her eyes.

I thought for a moment, pondering the words she had just spoken. After about a minute, I lifted my Irish chain from it's nook atop my neck, placing it tenderly around her own small frame, "My sister gave this to me for my twenty-fifth birthday. She saved her own money to buy it, and it meant more to me than anything else in the world. It felt like ... it kept me sane sometimes. To know that she loved me," I adjusted it against her smooth nape, swallowing deep into the back of my throat, "I never lost track of it ... not for one second. It was a part of me that I couldn't live without."

"And you ... you want me to have it?"

"I know how sacred your gift is to me. I know it's not much, but this chain represents my entire ... self. Which is you."

She blinked a few times, staring at me in a cross between adoration and wonder, "I ... I can't accept this. It's too important to you. What if I lose it or something?"

"Don't worry about it," I leaned into her face, letting my mouth suckle her bottom lip, "You're the only thing I stand to loose. The only thing that matters to me."

**********

"So, what should I call us now ... lovers?"she smirked at the word, leaning around me to snatch a bar of chocolate.

"We've always been lovers," I reminded her, giving the small hand a passing kiss." Regular size or Mini's?"

"Regular. So before we, you know, ...you'd refer to me as your lover?"

"Always," I whispered, handing her the pack of marshmallows. "You know ... I don't think I've ever made 's'mores before."

"It's like falling off a log," she patted my back and gave a small nudge, "Medium burn, one marshmallow, two mini chocolate bars, two graham crackers."

"I don't know ..."

"Okay ... emergency deal time," she straightened her back, allowing each eye to sparkle mischievious wonders into the air, "You make each of us one s'more ... and you can ..."

"What," I urged, my voice leaking a rare joy.

"You can come into the shower with me tonight."

Her posture was a precious sight to behold, each smile stretching with licks of every natural element known to man. It was something we'd never done ... never in person, never in a dream ... never that long lost day.

Now here she was; her eyes bulging and heavenly, her breasts heaving in apprehension at her bold suggestion. A seventeen year old heroine with nothing but bravery and love written into the seamless pores on her face. It was a dream.

She was a dream.

"Deal."

It was like that for a few days after that. She'd prance around, clinging against my flesh like a second whole body part. We'd wake up each sunrise in a repetitive fashion ... our bodies snug and warm in the sanctuary our presence created. We'd began love-making in a fairly regular pattern, and it was becoming a rare jewel we only shared with one another. To Buffy, it was a secret that kept us close. We'd take walks some nights, her make-up done just so, her every fabric a trade mark of an unconquerable spirit. She'd hold back giggles while smiling at the blank and varied faces passing by us, grabbing at my hand. They didn't know what we really did at night, she had told me once. No one else on this earth could really melt together in the way we could. It was us against the world.

Forever.

"Mmmm," she had cooed the next morning, snuggling into my chest after we'd shared our bodies yet again, "I don't think I'll ever get tired of doing that."

"Agreed." I kissed her forehead, letting the juices dance and sparkle against my lips.

"Holy...God. I can't...I can't believe this is happening! What the *hell* is going on!?"

Her voice. It was twisted...wrapped in a shell of anger and bitter hurt. It was an out of body experience...my eyes were closed, and her voice seemed to emanate from across the room.

"Buffy?"

"Which one are you talking to? Me or the one you just had *sex* with?"

"Oh my God." the Buffy from our past leaned against me in a quick blur, fear and confusion vibrating off of her glowing skin. It slipped against me, still moist from the sweat of our love-making.

"What are you doing ..."

"First of all, shut up. Second of all ... I think I, oh I don't know, have the *right* to be the interviewer here. Why is there another me naked, and why the hell are you screwing around with her?!"

"Calm down. You don't know the facts."

"Giles told me all I needed to know. I'm guessing your little fang gang didn't think it was even remotely important to let me know that you were all hot and heavy with my past self? God Angel, don't you care about me at all?"

"How can you even ask that?"

"You're *sleeping* with ... technically ... * me*... but that's not the point. I mean ... that's why you didnt tell me, right? You knew we'd try and find a way to send her back. Couldn't have that ...couldn't get rid of your new sex toy."

"You know what Buffy, just stop it. Wait in the living room, we can talk in there."

"I'm not going anywhere untill you start fessing up," she snorted, eyes a meld of razors against my form, "Here you are playing the holier than thou celibate ex, giving Riley the arrogant act or whatever, and Miss Old Timers comes in and you can't get enough of it.."

"Who's Riley?" the Buffy from our past let something of a tremor overtake what had been warm and heavenly almost moments earlier.

"My lover," Buffy snapped.

"You can't be serious," she blinked repeatedly, her face a whirlpool of horror and shock. After a moment, her lips opened just slighty ... a tear of fire carving a path down her tender cheek, "How could you *ever* give yourself to someone who isn't Angel?"

"You'll see," Was Buffy's sharp reply, her arms crossed and glued againt a tightened chest, "Not like we have much choice in the matter."

Our past Buffy turned to look at me ... her expression dying one thousand times over in my eyes, "What ... what happened?" she asked between tears, her eyes large and innocent.

"You didn't tell her? I don't believe this ..."

"Tell me what? Angel, what happened?"

I rubbed her shoulders in a slow repetition, "Not now," I whispered soothingly, "This isn't the right time."

Buffy glared at my actions, a tear from the depths of a fiery rage corroding her expression, "Congratulations. You have what you want. I'll just leave you two lovebirds alone."

"Buffy, wait. Where are you going?"

"My Dad's."

"You can't drive like this."

"Tough," she grimaced, kneading her hands into her gut, "I'm glad our story has a happy ending. Even if I'm not the one it's with."

I grabbed my robe, chasing her desperately out the door, "Wait. Buffy, no! You don't understand. She's *you*. You *know* I love *you*."

"You love us both. There's me, "now me"...and then there's what I was. Someone who thought you and I could *never* end the way we actually did. And it's pretty obvious which one you like better."

"That's not true, we both know that. There is no liking better, Buffy, it's you no matter what."

"It's not fair! It's not fair that I'm the one who went through hell and she gets to have you ..." her resolve broke down, shudders of sadness throbbing against her chest, "What else do I have to do?"

"Buffy, please ..."

"Angel, just don't, ok? I don't ... I don't think I can handle this right now."

I let a hand reach out to the slipping side of her frame, my eyes resuming a begging stance, "You're too emotional to drive right now. Spend the night ... please. I'll sleep on the couch."

"Right now ... God" she let her resolve slip under something fragile and clear, a tremor exploding against the outer layer of skin, "Right now I don't think I can even be *near* you."

Silence.

Silence is truly deadly. You can never know what will happen next. The vibrations of a spirit sunken below any kind of faith or rationality, a cry of unresolved passion or restlessness. Buffy let her shoes drag helplessly against the floor, a wall of something strange, hard, and foreign emanating off of her pulse. She left ... and I had to let her go.

Silence.

"Angel," her voice was so tender, so fearful. My lover came up from behind me, reaching the sheer pastures of each bare arm around my waist. She had slipped my shirt around her glorious curves, rubbing gently against me, "I'll understand if you want me to leave."

I broke at that moment. Turning around fast, I took the innocence of her glance and held it between my hands, "Buffy. I love you more than life itself. Don't talk like that."

"That's ... not me," she gazed in a toned down manner, an omnipresant glow surrounding the territory the Buffy of our present had departed from, "She's not me," it was like a mantra now. A deadly, yet sorrowful spell.

"It *is* you," I assured, letting a finger press passionatly against her cheek, "I know your soul, this beautiful soul, better than I know myself. I can feel every inch of you inside of me ... whether we're making love or not. You're always right here," I slowly caressed her hand, lifting it up to my bare chest. She shuddered, entranced at the feel of our physical link. "You're always inside of me. I know what your feeling, the way each limb in your body works with one another in this ... sacred way. I can hear it no matter how far from me you can be."

**********

"Make a promise ..."she let the water do something unworldly to her complexion. It slithered down each curve ... adding its own torments of honey dew and cool springs to a baptismal font in its own right. Everything that happened to her ... every way the earth twisted underneath her grasp ... it was all to magnify the beauty already present. Nothing could outdo what I saw when she looked at me. Nothing.

"Anything," my voice always answered her in the form of a contract ... a pilgrimage into any wonders or emotions I placed solely into her hands. I trusted her in a way the natural formation of a demon wasn't supposed to be programmed. A monster stalked the dusk of shadows, lurked shrewdly around anything that might hold a blessed truth or sanctity. But not me. It was an entirely new existence now ... and everyday a blade of clarity reminded me to that fact. She *was* me, in an odd yet harmonious manner. We were each other, staring in awe at the forms our seperate parts had taken on.

"Promise me you won't lie to me about ... about all of this. Not anymore. I mean ... with "millenial Buffy" on the prowl ... I'm not sure if I can take any more lies."

I let my glance elongate into a connection, a sincerity that naturally flowed when forced to lose myself in those pools of emerald. The love ... the sheer emotion of everything I'd always begged for and never thought worthy to recieve...I let it all leak into her. I let her see that factual basis in which I stood, supplicating.

It was almost a metaphorical instance. My legs were taught against the floor of Cordelia's shower. The contrasting warmth of falling water and the cold of droplets that'd had ample time to freeze...gave a strange sense of balance to my temperature. The muscle's of my bare back moved in tall languid strides ... letting the feel of each moist droplet overcome everything dear to me. I was naked before her ... in every physical and emotion way that had ever existed. My soul held no armor...and unlike what I had once been, that primordial fact allowed my heart to twitch.

"I promise," was the whisper.

In that moment ... I knew it. I was looking at Buffy. Buffy. As a whole. Past, present, and future. In this sacred and velvet moment ... I let a finger trace the cream of her cheek, let my chest press desperately against her. A tender touch...a look that allowed her to shiver openly, "All of you. I promise *you*."

And she knew what I meant. Somewhere, somehow ... the Buffy of our present felt it also.

They weren't two different people. There was no jealousy ... no false emotions and pride to tarnish something laced with crystal and chocolate cubes. Buffy was Buffy ... past and present. The same being ... the same heart. As was I. I was the same young fool who'd spent idle nights at pubs and brothels ... allowing my parents to consume the blame for my heartbeats of debauchery. I was him ... transformed in some powerful existence. And as many years as I'd prayed to the powers to release me of "his" burden ... that young lad was everything I was. The same fears, the same passions. He had just been scared. Scared to show weakness, scared to die in a pulse of unhappyness and regret. I knew no better ... I grew with the times.

And that's how it was with my lover.

She had the tunage of the world on the shoulders of a child. At the ripe age of fifteen, the symbolism of crude adulthood had slapped a body lash against the pores of her cheek ... commanding what she hadn't deserved. None of us deserve pain, to feel unrequited desires.

But she got them.

And through something glorious that we created, Buffy had been able to find a temporary solace from the baggage she had been placed with. When this orb of pure joy had been ripped from her trembling arms, she'd become the Buffy I'd known today. A frightened child ... scared into becoming a bitter woman.

But she was still Buffy. And I would die for her. Gladly.

She was me.

**********

"You know what the worst part was? About seeing you with ... me?"

"What?" I let my arms rest safely atop my lap. Buffy was dressed in her own reserved manner, every lick of skin covered in a naturally sensual dance.

She had decided not to return to the home of her childhood. I remembered what it could feel like...to watch something that had once held your innocence become utterly tarnished by your new footsteps ... by what you had let yourself become. I, however, had done it to myself. Buffy hadn't.

Yet still, she had been staying at a rather nice little motel, pacing along the green carpet like a deer lost on a plaguing thought. I let the chocolate of my glance sweep downward for a moment, noticing the tracks her tender bare feet had confiscated. Her concentration had been racing in a million directions, and I cursed myself for that truth.

"It wasn't that ... that it wasn't me. It was that it ..."her voice sweetened to a glorious tenderness, and I finished for her softly.

"... that it *was* you."

"Oh God, Angel. Was I ever ... was I really that far into 'Doey-Eye Yayness'?"

"You know the answers to all your questions, Buffy. You know who you are, who you were ..."

"But maybe I don't! I mean ... I've ... "she looked downwards, a shy haze working its throb, "I'm no stranger to ... to sex stuff. Believe me. And I don't treat it like the be all and end all of the universe. Then I walk in ... I walk in to see *myself*, holding onto you...breathing and smiling. I had forgotten what that was like. To 'make love'. I mean ... don't get me wrong, I love Riley. But not ... not like ..."

She lowered her voice to a stinging silence. That was the road that couldn't be crossed, a land of emotions that flooded any normal existence or hesitation of sanity. She chuckled for a moment, sitting down next to my panting corpse.

"This isn't a happy ending. You know it's not safe."

"Wesley and I are working on it," my eyes stared ... stared straight ahead into nothing. That feeling ... like someone had stabbed you in the gut. It's ironic...poets and love-stuck farm boys of all decades have used that phrase as a passing fad when it comes to "love."

But you'll know its truth when you get it. Flashes of agony will fill you in a way heaven nor hell could ever prevent.

She wouldn't be safe. The Buffy of our past would never be safe in my embrace. The one of the present ... never safe under my partnership for joy. A rock ... a rock and a hard place. Literally.

"Will you keep me up to date on the olden gal scenario?"

Her eyes ... so beautiful. My God. So perfect.

"Yes."

"Promise?"

"I promise."

She returned to Sunnydale that night ... to the college boy she passed the time with casually. Her heart left me with a gift ... the gift of remaining on 'good terms'. The fact that her life would now live in the ruins of anagonizing curiosity would haunt her no doubt ... but a sense of maturity kept that fact from being told to me.

I sat at Cordelia's bedroom window, letting something odd and terrorizing about the night air overcome me. Then it came in ... like the tune of a moist desire. Of purity. Buffy, my glorious partner in everything, lay sleeping on the bed. Her lips ... the very tips of them ... curved into a smile.

Hope.

Our past, our present, no matter what the situation may be ... there's always pain. Our minds find an odd pleasure in analyzing it ... sulking in it. Wondering how our lives would be if that pain had been lifted.

But that was the difference. Between "Angel" and Liam. Between the Buffy of past and present. We all sang with the same pulses of the very soul that makes us "human." Nothing had changed, no purity had been lost. But hope, that rare jewel that makes children appear to be floating ... that's what we had forgotten.

Buffy and I had given up. And staring at my lover, watching that simple yet glorious act of breathing in and out with a longing that exists in waters of the rarest joy, made me pray to get one ounce, one micro-surge of the liquid power that one throb of happiness possessed. The glory of knowing something through your soul and dying for it's purpose.

I would never lose hope again.

(Don't worry...we havn't seen the last of Poddie. *g* Stay Tuned.)

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