Disclaimer: Not mine.
Spoilers: Everything up to now.
Summary: Angel thinks. (Scary.)
Distribution: If you have any of mine, take this one. If you don't and you want it, send me your address and tell me why.
Feedback: Think of it as a gift for me…
Rating: Real tame. PG—13. One or two swear words.
Author's Note: I keep telling people I'm writing long stories, and not to expect anything from me, but then I find stuff on my computer, or I just get these ideas for fics… and here's one of those ideas. It's not good, sorry.

I've felt loved twice in my life.

The first was when I was young. Still human, still only a boy. My mother and my sister.

I loved them, and they loved me. No matter what the situation with my father was, I could handle it, if only for their sakes. They could handle it because I could help them.

Drusilla, in a twisted way, cared for me. I was her sire. She was my lover at times. Now I don't know what she is. My enemy?

When Darla came and changed me, I killed them both. The demon in me knew I had loved them, and hated it. He destroyed everything there.

I can't kill her. I've tried to so many times… If I got a good chance, I like to tell myself I'd do it in an instant.

I never loved either one of them. My demon didn't have the ability to love. Or even care, really. I was with Darla for so long because she was entertaining. I would have staked her if I ever felt like it.

The second time I felt loved was with Her. The first time I saw her, I knew I loved her. Every day I was apart from her, I longed to see her.

When we finally met face to face, I pretended not to know exactly who she was. She bought it. I loved her then, too, even as I was getting up from the ground outside the Bronze.

The second time was in that crypt outside of the Master's lair. To this day, I can remember her exact words, what she wore, everything… I think that was when she started to feel for me.

In those sweet months before her seventeenth birthday, I would have done anything for her. I still would.

She is everything to me, even now. Even now when I can remember all of the mistakes we made when we were together.

As cliché as it sounds, the night we made love, her seventeenth birthday was the best night of my life…

She doesn't know about the best day. Even though she was right there. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

When I changed, I hurt her badly. We never talked about it afterwards, I think we were too afraid, but it was clear every time that she looked at me with those eyes of hers… her heart ached. She wanted the freedom that we'd had before that night. After I came back, it wasn't the same. We tried. We pretended that we could stand stopping before it got too far. We pretended that it would really work out. And we pretended that nothing else would break us up.

Then that night that Spike came back. He was right.

"You're not friends. You'll never be friends. You'll be in love `till it kills you both. You'll fight, you'll shag, you'll hate each other `till it makes you quiver, but you'll never be friends. Love isn't brains, children, it's blood, it's blood screaming inside of you to work its will. I may be love's bitch, but at least I'm man enough to admit it."

My childe. I hate to admit it, but he was right. We still aren't friends. We don't talk, we don't write… Even our friends don't bring each other up. Too much pain.

The mayor, twisted bastard that he was, was right too. All the talk about her growing old, and me staying the way I was… am.

"You're immortal, she's not. It's not. I married my Edna May in ought-three and I was with her right until the end. Not a pretty picture. Wrinkled and senile and cursing me for my youth. Wasn't our happiest time."

And the curse again. And the sunlight. And the children. And everything…

"And let's not forget the fact that any moment of true happiness will turn you evil. I mean, come on. What kind of a life can you offer her? I don't see a lot of Sunday picnics in the offing. I see skulking in the shadows, hiding from the sun. She's a blossoming young girl and you want to keep her from the life she should have until it has passed her by. My God! I think that's a little selfish. Is that what you came back from Hell for? Is that your greater purpose?"

It was far truer than we would have ever admitted at the time.

Even after that though, we tried. Buffy and I were desperate. I loved her so much then, that I would have walked in the sun for her.

But as the end of her school year grew closer and closer, I began to think about it. I realized it wasn't going to work.

And then Joyce came.

And that dream.

It was the last straw.

It hurt so much to tell her I was leaving her.

She cried. She cries so rarely that I knew it was… I knew anyway though. It was the most painful thing I'd ever been through in two-hundred and some years of life and death. Worse than gaining my soul.

When I went to LA, I thought I'd be alone for a while. I thought I'd be able to stick to the darkness, stay in the shadows and help people my way. Then Doyle came, and then Cordelia.

They did more for me than they'll ever know.

Everything was going smoothly until November. Thanksgiving weekend. That was a weekend I've yet to decide if I want to forget or keep reliving. Maybe I could just relive the first part, with Buffy and I before Doyle's vision.

I would do anything to bring that day back to me, to relive it, stay human. At the same time, I know that I can't do that. Buffy's life depended on us not being together.

No one, not even Buffy herself, could imagine how much that phrase hurts.

I think that was the first time I realized that we truly can't be together.

I still have hopes for the future, if I get this redemption fast enough.

But it's distant from me. I've shoved it to the back of my mind, and I try not to think of her. Of the girl I love.

But everyday, I think of her. I imagine my first day as a human again.

Would she care? If I were to tell her, would she care?

The Buffy I met in LA in May, or whenever it was wouldn't. She was a stubborn bitch then.

I hurt her again. Somehow, she got the idea that I care about Faith in a way that she didn't like. So she lashed out, tried to hurt me.

I never told her that she did.

She never told me that I hurt her.

Neither of us needed that.

It's been a long time since then. Months. I wonder if she still thinks of me? Does she remember the days we spent together? Does she know that I love her?

I never lied when I said I did and always would.

She was so young though. But maybe I underestimate her.

I hope that's what it is.

Because even now, when Darla and Drusilla are distracting me, driving me crazy… She's on my mind.

Always.

(Well, what do you think? I got the idea for it this afternoon and wrote it when I was supposed to be cleaning for a Christmas party, so it might be a little choppy, but what do you think? Tell me!! goredwings@u...)

One more thing. The address for my site was wrong. It's really http://www.angelfire.com/mi3/zettazofia/index.html. Sorry!

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