Title: Take Me Away
Author: Crazy_Girl_Mary
Email: crazy_girl_mary@yahoo.com
Disclaimer: They’re all Joss’ and probably some other people but hey I’m a rebel so I play if I want damn it!
Summary: The Shanshu prophecy is real, and the end of the world is inevitable if one of the two possible vampire heroes doesn’t fulfill it already.
Pairings: B/A, some Faith/Wood
Category: Romance
Spoilers: Up to Angel Episode Destiny, and Buffy Season Finale.
Rating: PG-13 at most. Yeah, it’s that mushy romance crap.
Author’s Comments: My first lyric wheel participation. I’m happy with the outcome, although it is a little late. Thanks to whoever gave me these lyrics, which you can find below, I totally forget who you are, but thanks to you dude.

Buffy pulled in a waking breath and grazed her hand across the cool pillow next to hers. Her eyes were still closed to the darkness and she ran her hand down the empty side of the bed searching for her companion. She opened her eyes and squinted in the harsh reality of her empty hotel bed. She had been dreaming again.

It was the same dream she had entertained every night for the past two weeks. The nightly dreams, just like the waking days, were filled with visions of Angel. She hadn’t wanted to come to the hotel, but after Sunnydale had vanished and a gaping hole had been left behind they had all needed a home base, a place for a fresh start, and they hadn’t come up with any other solution but Los Angeles. They had come more specifically to the Hyperion, Buffy, Giles, Faith, Robin, Xander, Willow, Andrew, Dawn, and the potentials, to try and continue working for the forces of good.

Despite the constant workflow provided by Angel’s new law firm gig, Buffy couldn’t help feeling obsolete. Her and Faith had often talked about it. She knew Faith was far too arrogant to ever admit to the fact that there were now hundreds, maybe even thousands, of girls all over the world with the same gift only they alone had once held. Faith persisted that they were still the best and that the girls had a lot to learn before becoming true slayers but sometimes Buffy wondered.

She had always dreamed that one day she would be free, the weight of the world lifted from her shoulders, and she would rejoice in the long life ahead of her. Now, those dreams were vacant wishes. The truth was, she could leave, she could run away and live a long normal life, but that dream was empty without someone to share it with. She knew who she wanted to share it with, the same man she had always wanted to share it with, but the fact remained the same, it was as impossible as it ever was to run away with Angel and live a normal life. That was something they could never do. Despite this knowledge she could still taste his mouth and feel his skin, and she still dreamed all the same.

She rushed into a cold shower to try and stir the dreams from her mind but she knew they would linger on into the new night and haunt her every time she laid eyes on him. She knew it wasn’t fair, and it wasn’t right, but it was either way and she had to deal… she couldn’t act. She couldn’t have him, it had always been so, and despite the unfairness of it all that tinged the back of her throat a metal flavor, it was destined.

She got out of the shower and when dressing picked an outfit as dark as the night and her mood. It was one that she hoped wouldn’t drawl his eyes to her too often because every time he looked her over she wished she could die, either die or have his hands follow the path his eyes took without the imminent consequences.

He sent a driver with a limo to pick up her up every day and had around the clock security watching the hotel to ensure the safety of it’s inhabitants. He had over time reduced the original Wolfram & Hart security team, to more independent and loyal agents, ones he could trust, he was sure of it. They had worked under Wesley and Gunn, and sung to Lorne to prove their non-evil status multiple times. If that was good enough for Angel, it was good enough for Buffy. She knew he would never allow harm to come to them.

She went downstairs and tossed a few quick pleasantries to Dawn and Giles before heading out to the limo. She knew it wasn’t right, the way she was feeling. She was obsessed and she could feel the disaster humming in her veins every time she thought about it, thought about him. She went willingly to her torture every day, and slept to dream every night of a different existence with him, of something real, something palpable, something she knew could never be.

She opened the door to the limo to find Faith and Robin making out across the seat. “Hey Buff,” Faith said pulling away from him and wiping her mouth crudely with the back of her hand like a child. She felt awkward around the pair, but she knew there was no way around them. Aside from this she was thankful for a distraction from her inner misery.

“Hey,” she said as she got in the limo and slid down the shiny leather seat away from them. She looked at Faith questioningly, not bothering to just say the words.

Faith smiled, “What no memo?” she asked. “There’s a big ol’ bad coming B.”

Robin shook his head, wondering why Faith was always so damn vague all the time. “She means, Angel called, they have found a prophecy reading of a possible impending apocalypse.”

Buffy sighed. “I know right!” Faith interjected, “Like we haven’t had our fill of those. And just when things were looking all up and sunny huh?”

Buffy looked out the window. A large tinted dark black surface coating the Los Angelus streets in a gloomy shroud. The sun only a dark orb peeking down from above the window’s view and the people walking the streets looked absurd in their bathing suits and sunglasses amidst the dark illusion.

Once the Wolfram & Hart building came into its view it was apparent to Buffy that the building was the only thing that looked pretty and comfortable in the dark black shroud. She had always thought the shiny building looked prettier in the cool night as apposed to under the over harsh reflecting sun. She was pulled from this beauty when Robin offered his hand to help her out of the limo. She looked at it, awkwardly as though it reminded her of a time when they sat at dinner and talked… and kissed. Had they kissed? She couldn’t remember. Every time she tried before she got to the kissing part, Robin had somehow morphed into Angel, and it felt right, like she had been on a date with him instead.

She blinked all this away in an instant and took his hand. “You all right Buffy?” he asked her.

“You all right?” Faith mocked, “Apocalypse! Plus this place gives her the creeps, I mean Jesus, gives me the damn creeps too!” Faith prompted sidling up to the door and throwing it open in an animalistic show of aggression. She let Faith’s excuse stand and followed them inside.

Like usual Wolfram & Hart was bustling with employees but something that wasn’t quite as usual, but not abnormal by any means, was the terror seen deep inside those employees eyes regarding the impending doom. Angel sat at his desk, not feeling in charge, as the constant stream of employees and associates filtered in and out with a complete lack of information on the problem. They had translators converting the prophecy to and from any possible language it could be in, and worst of all Wesley was on a leave of absence so Fred was doing her best heading up that department since the little fluke cup thing. There was one ray of hope inside his everyday, inherently coupled with a painful punch of guilt to his stomach, and she was walking through the lobby toward his office.

Buffy weaved her way through the hustle and bustle completely unaffected by anyone around her. Her eyes rolled at Faith’s comment as they parted through the line of translators waiting to present the captain with their findings. “Hey Angel!” Faith yelled, “What’s the word?”

“Faith,” he said nodding to her and her companion, “there is none.”

“That’s no fun,” Robin Wood replied looking around the room. It was the first time he had been inside Angel’s office. The truth was, he sat weird with Angel. He could still smell Spike’s blood all over the man, not that his attack bothered him, or not that he would admit it, it just made him wonder what he would do to Angel given the opportunity.

“Neither are apocalypses, so I guess they have a right to be friends.”

Angel followed the voice he had begun to associate with a considerable amount of annoyance, and an equal amount of guilt to the doorway. Eve stood there, skirt even shorter then usual, looking much like she owned the place. It was the first appearance she’d made since the little episode with the bad translator.

She walked in and made herself comfortable on the front of his desk, drawling a few glares from the females present in the room. “New secretary Angel?” Faith asked with a lifted eyebrow.

“You must be Faith,” Eve said extending her hand. “A true pleasure to meet you!” Her flattery was obviously a little too overdone for Faith’s taste.

“I’m not very touchy feely,” Faith said giving Eve and her hand one of the cockiest looks Angel had yet to see on Faith’s face in a while.

Eve lowered her hand awkwardly to her lap, “That’s not what I’ve heard.” She looked over Wood but refrained from comment, then to Buffy.

“Buffy Summers,” Eve said with interest, looking her over a bit.

Unlike Faith, Buffy extended her hand but he could still see a fair amount of skepticism in her eyes. “And you are?”

Eve looked to Angel briefly and he could feel a tinge of panic rising in his still chest at what she might say. “Angel hasn’t mentioned me?” she asked in mock offense. “I’m Eve, the connection to the senior partners.”

“Yeah cause we need a connection to them,” Faith remarked.

“Yeah, you kinda do,” Eve replied slightly mocking Faith’s tone, “but you don’t have to worry your pretty little head about such matters cause you got big strong men and Buffy here to take care of all the serious thinking.”

“Whoa kiddies,” Spike said swaggering in. He gave Buffy the look of a hungry cat and turned finally to Eve and Faith, “from what I hear this is no time to be scraping.” For once Angel was happy to have Spike enter the room, because Faith looked like she was about to murder Eve and Eve didn’t look quite like she understood what that meant. That didn’t mean he would show his thankfulness outwardly to the bleached pain in the ass.

“What are you doing here Spike?” Angel asked.

“Yeah mate,” he said, “like I was dying to leave this place.” He plopped down on the leather couch. “You got 1000 multi-plane television channels, Vipers, and all kinds of neat stuff to play with. Besides, no use running, can’t escape an apocalypse and all. This ain’t still about that shanshu shit is it?”

“No,” Angel answered abruptly.

“Well, the golden cup might have been fake, but the problem of two vampires to fulfill the shanshu prophecy is real kids,” Eve said.

Spike looked at Angel smiling, “Looks to me like big boss man doesn’t know everything around here, or anything for that matter.” He still turned skeptically to Eve. “So what do I have to do to fulfill it?” Spike asked.

Angel started to protest but looked at Buffy and swallowed his rising anger. Eve looked towards Angel, “Well champ, one of you guys has to give it all up.”

She looked beautiful. Breathtaking even in the simplest thing, he was sure of this status despite his lack of breath for her to take. The room had quickly emptied out, although Spike had been more then reluctant to go, sure that Angel would weave an intricate web of lies and promises to convince Buffy that he was the man for her. He wasn’t planning on any of that. He just wanted to find out how she truly felt and he wanted to be in the same room with her one more time so that he could smell her and see her just this way in his dreams forever.

He knew what had to be done. Someone had to give up, had to accept that they had lost her forever. She was his everything and more. Cordelia had been a fluke. She had been beautiful of course and had grown more beautiful working for him, but finding out that she had truly felt the same way, that she had loved him, had really made him fall for her. It was because he feared that Buffy didn’t still feel that love for him. He wasn’t quite sure Spike had been a fluke to her, and he had to find out for sure.

She stood there, awkwardly, in the middle of the empty room waiting for him to speak and kill the deafening silence. He knew what he had to say but was unsure how to say it. Watching her stand there he couldn’t help but imagine it was on different terms. For a moment he easily got lost in the fantasy after days of imagining similar ones. She had come to him, desperate to leave, “Run away with me Angel!” she would cry and he would be more then happy to answer her call.

“Angel?” she asked, and he was pulled all too quickly from his fantasy.

“I have to know what you are thinking,” he answered slowly after pulling his gaze from a remote portion of the room where his fantasy was playing out to fix on her hazel eyes.

She let out a nervous laugh, “I don’t even know the answer to that one.” She looked around the room as if for some hidden spy or someone watching her then she sat down in the chair before his desk, now eye level with him, and close enough to smell him. He smelled ancient, but in a good way, like spiced tea and soapy clean. But lurking in the back, he carried a smell all vampires did. The stench of death, and his was no fainter to her nose then any other of his kind.

“I just… I need to know who you think deserves the shanshu more.”

Buffy stared deep into his eyes, searching for trust and understanding in the answer she knew she had to give. Without fully finding it, she knew she could no longer hold the name in. “Spike.”

Angel winced lightly as if a blow to the stomach had just befallen him. He couldn’t even think of a protest, and the question burning in his gut just boiled right out of him mouth. “Is that because you love him?” he asked, showing far less anger then he was feeling. No matter what she said he couldn’t hurt her. Didn’t she understand that, his love was purer, more serious, and more mature then any love Spike could show her?

“No,” she answered, and he didn’t believe her for a second. He could see the love swirling in her eyes, feel the love radiating off of her in waves, at just the mention of his name. He knew Spike could be romantic, and was a skilled lover, but that spoke nothing of his devotion and the serious love he felt for Buffy, it wasn’t the ownership that Spike so favored.

He jerked his head away towards the window, no longer able to see the love in her eyes, thoughts of Spike and her together and sharing the future that should’ve been theirs threatened vomit.

“It’s because I love you,” she answered slowly and lightly. He turned his head back to her roughly. Was she playing games with him? “I try not to but I can’t stop, remember?” she asked, and he could see the threat of tears in her eyes.

God did he remember, he remembered it like it was yesterday, he remembered it like he remembered nothing else in his entire life, and that had been the problem in a nutshell. “So why?” he asked slowly. “Why do you want to take the chance of our happy future and give it to Spike?”

“Because we can never have that happy future, especially not so easily.” Buffy sighed and looked deep into his eyes, breaking his broken heart even further. “I just feel like we had that chance before, in another life time, and I feel like you took it all away from me and I don’t wanna feel like that again.”

He felt like he had been stabbed in the chest at hearing the residual effects of that little human catch jumping out of the near past. He should have known she couldn’t forget such joy completely. She was right. He had had the chance for happiness with her, but the risk of not being able to protect her had been too great. Could he give that all up now? Could he just stand by while she fought every night, because he knew she would continue to fight, it was innate for her, as it was for him. He had to accept the fact that he was a vampire, and yet a demon hunter. Could he try again to give all that up just to be with her? Just to be with her was a great reward of course, but to watch and not be able to protect her, will be might as well stand on the sidelines, or trade lives with Dawn. He would be just another helpless civilian, a burden to her, someone else she would have to protect. She was right, they had tried perfect happiness before, and he had decided the price was too high. The price was still too high.

He knew he could still have his dreams. He dreamed all night, all day, and every time he laid eyes on her, of the impossible future they could have together. The malleable happiness they could find with each other, with marriage, with kids, with real jobs and bills to pay, and even a damn minivan. The American dream would suit him fine as long as it was with Buffy, the love of his life, but it was a dream after all, a dream inside of a dream for him.

“Spike,” Angel firmly repeated. “Spike is the hero, he saved the world, and gave his life… he deserves to shanshu.” He and Buffy had come to the mutual and painful decision and Angel only had to inform Eve and find out what had to be done from there.

“You’re damn right I am,” Spike called from behind him. Angel could only imagine the shock on his face, but he actually saw satisfaction on Eve’s face as if she expected his submission. “It’s about time you lot recognized a true hero.”

Spike continued to rant, but Angel didn’t hear it all, the bright white light enveloping his eyes was just too strong to ignore. Confused, he rubbed his eyes attempting to swat it away. It was no use and he soon felt the floor rise up to meet him. “What’s wrong with him?” Spike was asking over top of him.

Eve answered, “A true hero would never give over his reins too easily Spike. It appears Angel is the one who deserves to shanshu after all. He wanted it for all the right reasons, and didn’t want if for all the right reasons.”

“Are you kidding me?” Spike asked angrily.

“Afraid not.”

Angel opened his eyes and the lights were gone. Spike and Eve were no longer standing over him. He himself was standing. He looked down to find his hands emerged in a sink full of dirty dishes and water. He had a soapy dishrag and a plate in his hands and the sun shining in the open window above the sink warmed his tan skin and made his bare chest and arms tingle slightly.

The most overwhelming feeling he had ever felt was the need to breath. It was like a gift from god, clarification of his current status. He was human, as human as could be, just like he remembered it, although far more domesticated then he claimed during his last venture. He heard her bare feet lightly pad into the room just before her arms wrapped lightly around his waist. He swooned in her arms, almost falling over at how warm and comfortable and lovely she felt. She kissed his bare back.

“We deserve a vacation Angel,” she said lightly. He looked down and saw her petite hands, adorned with a white gold claddagh wedding band to match the one he wore, were holding a travel brochure. The brochure’s cover boasted Puerto Rico in red, white and blue colors, and held various enticing pictures.

“Didn’t you say you’ve never been to Puerto Rico?” she asked lightly rubbing her cheek across the smoothness of his back.

“No never,” he answered lightly, the unbelievably of it all still threatening to cause him to wake from the dream. “I hear the demonic activity there is something to marvel at.”

She smiled into his back and answered happily, “no problem mixing a little work with our play.” Her hands run around his stomach and grabbed his arms, turning him to her. He gasped lightly at her beauty in the sunlight, she was wearing a pink sundress, and her hair was up in a sloppy bun that allowed her face and neck to fully grab his attention. She took her now empty hands in his, looked him in the eyes, and made a simple request. How could he not fulfill her every fantasy.

“Take me away, Angel.”

"Take Me Away"
By Fefe Dobson

I was waiting all my life to know you
(all about you)
And now I'm staring in your eyes in shea flour
(all about you)

And in our minds, it comes so easily
But there’s a feeling comin' over me
I want to show you,
But there’s nowhere we can really be free
Everybody's watchin'

Wouldn't it be good if we could be together

Take me away,
Take me far away from here
I will run with you
Don't be afraid
Navigating, I will steer
Into the sun, we will run

I try...to remember when I was just a child
(In a roo-oom)
And my...imagination used to run wild
(I never knee-ew)

Then nothing ever as it seems to be
When a dream collides with our reality
It should be easy when two people love each other --to me
Everybody's talkin'

Wouldn't it be good if they would understand us...

Take me away,
Take me far away from here
I will run with you
Don't be afraid (afraid)
Navigating, I will steer
Into the sun, we will run...

We, will run.
Whoooaaa whoa whoa whoa
We, will run.
Oh yeah yeah yeaah

Wouldn't it be good if they would understand us
Wouldn't it be good if we could be together...
TAKE ME AWAY!

Take me away, (take me away)
Take me far away from here
I will run with you
Don't be afraid (Don't..Be..Afraid)
Navigating, I will steer
Into the sun, we will run...

Run, whoa whoa whooaa
I will run with you wherever you go
Don't be afraid
Let's runaway and I will steer
Into the sun, we will run.