Disclaimer: All characters are the property of the WB, Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy and Fox.
Spoiler: Everything up to I Will Remember You. B/A angst.
Distribution: All you need to do is ask.
Feedback: If you would please, I would appreciate it.
Note: Quotes are from Reptile Boy, Prom, I Will Remember You.
Note 2: This is just something I was tossing around in my head while finishing a final, so it's not that great. BTW, the thoughts at the beginning are Buffy's. I'm also working off the assumption Buffy still, somehow, has Angel's ring.

I dream, sometimes.

I dream of a life and a love I will never know again. All I've ever wanted to do was to grow old with you. To die by your side. I may not ever live to see thirty, but by God, I thought that at least The Powers That Be would let me have you.

"I want my life to be with you."

"I don't."

You took that dream with you when you left me.

I wonder if I will ever be able to look back and smile and remember what it felt like to love you. The last time I saw you there was just so much bitterness between us. I still struggle to understand why you left. I didn't realize I still had so much anger. Sure picked of a helluva time to surface. The things I said. God, were those really my words?

"So let's just stick to the plan. Keep our distance until enough time has passed. Given enough time we should be able to..."

I was lying. How could you not know? I honestly didn't think it was possible for my heart into even smaller pieces. Guess I was wrong, because when you completed my sentence with for me and said "Forget," I felt that old, familiar pain that could only be my heart cracking yet again. You always knew me so well, it came as no surprise that you could finish my sentences.But this time, Angel, you were wrong. So wrong that I felt a chill down to the bottom of my soul.

Do you know hard it was to leave you?

I didn't spend half the night alternately crying and plotting revenge, or get up at five in the morning to catch a bus ride to L.A. to spend time with my father, a man I barely even know anymore. I just watched to see you, to feel the thrill of being reflected in your dark eyes. But things didn't quite go according to plan. With us, they seldom do.

I wanted to take you in my arms and kiss away all of your pain and doubt. It's less now, I could tell by way you no longer hunch your shoulders. You hold your head a little higher. But you still feel it, that guilt that you cloak yourself in.

Baby, you embody self- flagellation.

If only I could show you how beautiful you are to me. How infinitely precious. I want to protect you from the world. Please, God. Somebody. I can't imagine living with this pain every single day of my life feeling like this, knowing the best part of my life is already over.

"This isn't some fairly tale. When I kiss you-you don't wake up from some deep sleep and live happily ever after."

"No. When you kiss me, I wanna die."

At the end of each day all I wanna do is lie in your arms. I know you feel it, our bond. I'm as sure as that as I am of anything. That, and that leprechauns don't exist. Giles says-God, I'm rambling.

When all is said and done, you're were the only person who looked at me as a whole person. Not as the Slayer or Buffy the Super Freak or some kind of disappointment. In your eyes I only saw the reflection of the woman you adored. Now that you're gone I just feel empty and hollow.

I don't wanna to accept the status quo. I don't wanna to move on. If I'm in denial, so be it. Call me the Queen of Denial. But I can feel the distance between us. I remember what it was like, when I first fell in love with you. Only I don't know if I should laugh or cry. God, we were so innocent, thinking that our love could somehow change...what...I don't know? Nothing could come between us. I'm just so unsure of so many things these days. I don't wanna feel anymore pain or guilt. I want something beautiful and perfect. And you are the only one who will ever be capable of giving that to me. But we could never escape the real world, could we?

What am I supposed to do?

Is there one particular reason that you walked away from me? Am I so forgettable that you would rather hide in L.A. and brood over cold memories and an empty bed? Is there something so wrong with me? Do you always have to make all the decisions? You want me to have a normal life, but how am I supposed to do that with you as the basis for comparison? I know you had your reasons to leave, but why wasn't I reason enough for you to stay?

The dust in the room caused her eyes to tear. Or, at least, that's what she told herself. Buffy Summers could only shake her head in dismay. What was the insane impulse that drove her to this place?

She idly turned over the small silver ring in her hand. The quiet, cold basement room offered no answered.

Sighing to herself, she braced her hands on the floor and slowly rose to a standing position.

Even stripped bare of furniture, she could still feel him here. Strange,that she should come here, not to the mansion, already brimming with activity under new ownership; not the Bronze; not any of Sunnydale's many cemeteries. It was this place she came to, when she needed to feel close to him. To Angel. They had made love their one and only time here. He had lost his soul and she had lost her heart completely.

Riley's waiting, she reminded herself.

He made her smile and her laugh. But he could never make her forget.

She got up to go to the door. She paused, however, and looked back. If she closed her eyes, she could still hear it. The building of something so big and bittersweet in it's beauty that it had change their lives forever.

She clasped the ring even tighter. Maybe if she had done just one thing different, he would have stayed.

That was the only answer she had. If only.

Pffftttt...do you think Riley could ever inspire feelings like that? I don't think so;)

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