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Title: Duty
Author: Diana
Email - mikonoda@bellsouth.net
Disclaimer: If I actually did own them, believe you me, things would be a LOT different. But, alas, they are property of Joss, UPN, etc, etc.
Timeline: Season 3, the break-up scene in "The Prom."
Spoilers: Season 2's "Surprise" and Season 3's "The Prom." That's about it.
Synopsis: Angel knows what he has to do...and it's never easy.
Distribution: Just tell me where it's going.
Author's Notes: After people told me where that picture was from, I had an inkling to watch my tapes again, just to see it. ^_^ Ended up going through the entire episode again. Very angsty.
Feedback: Yes, please! Makes the world go 'round, you know ^_^
Rating: I'm going to be a good girl and say PG.
Duty
***
It seemed that with them, everything happened in the dark places. But then again, what other places could there be? The way he was... The way he was, it was the reason he was even doing this. The reason he was leaving everything behind. The reason he was ending the greatest, brightest chapter of his life.
But he knew what he had to do. Joyce had made him see, *forced* him to see...but he had already known. And he thought he was ready.
Thought he was ready for the way it felt when she started to cry helplessly. She didn't want to cry in front of him. She was so strong, but not now. She couldn't hold them back and a part of her hated herself for it. His dead heart flipped over in his chest, and broke into tiny, million irreplaceable pieces he would never be able to repair.
Her green eyes were watching him, filled with pain. So much pain. With them though, all they ever really had was pain.
And love. Oh, god, and love.
She was talking and he was listening with his aching, unbeating heart, "...never gonna change!" She was crying openly, no longer sniffling. Her eyes were begging him to take it back, to see the error of his ways. This can't be, why are you doing this to me? she was saying.
A long pause...the final stand. She whispered painfully, "I want my life to be with you."
This is where it all really came down, wasn't it? The moment he would remember for the rest of his impossibly long days... But he had to. He knew it. He had been on this damned earth long enough to know what was and wasn't good for a young girl. And he wasn't good for her.
He was choking, drowning, burning in his sorrow. His endless sorrow. The sword, he could feel it in his gut. The way she was looking at him, fear and horror and that indescribable love. She knew what she had to do then, and it had nearly killed her. He could still feel the exploding sensation behind his eyes, everywhere, his stomach flooding with the white-hot pain.
But he had reached out for her. Like she was doing now. Reaching to him, to his heart, trying to get his mind straight again.
He knew what he had to do.
He died, for the third time, in that pause.
*I want my life to be with you.*
She was watching him, waiting... She knew what was going to happen but she couldn't believe it. Couldn't bear it.
*I want my life to be with you.*
He knew what he had to do. Now and always. Protect her, give her everything for a normal life. He couldn't do that while he was here, with her. When everything he looked at her, he saw the way she was pushing away things. Like her mom, her friends, her duty. Just to be with him. He distracted her.
This is what it all came down to, wasn't it? Decisions. Seemed like he was always making them. For her, for him, for a better life. But it would never really help, would it?
He felt hot tears prickling at the back of his eyes. Remembering her sitting on the steps of Hemery High, that red sucker in her hand. Remembering when he was life, and light, and good. All in that tiny blonde girl who was looking up curiously at an old man.
*I want my life to be with you*
A flashback to this morning. Both of them nestled in his bed, watching her wake up beside him. The way it was supposed to be. The way it should have been. Her eyes, drowsy from sleep, still in her dream world. His own eyes, soft and warm and loving. They had talked...little things...her hair...and it had felt like home.
He'd seen his dream future then...waking up like this, little ones in the next room, one crying for her mommy to feed her, the other climbing onto the bed between his parents...pancakes in the kitchen...her laugh when the younger one patiently awaiting food...his laugh when the older one insisted he was too sick to go to school.
*I want my life to be with you*
But they'd never have that. They never would. They would never a wedding, a child, a five-year anniversary. They wouldn't grow old together.
He shouldn't be stupid and selfish to want it.
He shouldn't need to remind himself that she was just a girl.
He shouldn't have to control himself when he was around her.
He shouldn't feel so deeply because he was what he was.
This is what it all came down to, wasn't it? The end. The end of them, what they'd shared, what they'd gone through, the pain, the love... the end of it all.
He was doing this for her. For her. For her.
This is really what it all came down to
*I want my life to be with you.*
Softly, inaudibly, he replied, "I don't."
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