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AUTHOR: Faith
DISCLAIMER I don't think I own any of these characters, but I could be wrong so if you see a name you don't recognize from the shows, it's my character.
SPOILERS One line is a spoiler, you'll know it as soon as you read the story. Think prom.
FEEDBACK alwaysluv@lycos.com
RATING G all the way
AUTHORS NOTE Feedback is motivation.
SUMMARY To summarize would be to give away the story. Just read it for yourself. =)
DREAMS
When she finally looked up at him with those big beautiful green eyes full of pain and fear caused by him, again, he almost lost all his resolve to do what he had planned to do, what he had to do. He hadn't expected to have to do it so soon, but things never turned out as he hoped they would.
"I want my life to be with you." She told him. Her tears made her sweet voice thick and shaky.
There was so much pain and betrayal in her eyes, on her beautiful face, in her usually soft and sweet voice. Was that what he had accomplished? Was that what he had spent the past years doing? Is that what everything had led up to? They had hoped for such a happy future, a future together. And this was how it all would end. Not exactly Shakespeare worthy.
He didn't want this for her. Not her. Not Buffy, his Buffy. He wanted to pull her into her arms and hold her, kiss away her tears, beg her forgiveness for everything that he had ever done, apologize for even thinking of leaving her, he wanted to spend eternity making it up for every shred of pain he had ever caused her, directly or indirectly, it didn't matter. He wanted to yell and scream at Joyce Summers and tell her to stay away from him, to stay out of his relationship with Buffy. He wanted to hate Buffy for letting him believe that he could live like a regular man, love like any other man. He was as capable of doing that as he was of forgetting Buffy and the love he felt for her. Besides, Joyce had only told him something he had already known for so long. He knew Buffy didn't think clearly when it came to him. She had always tried to base what she wanted on what he was capable of giving her and she made herself believe that it was enough. But when would it stop being enough? How long would she allow him to ruin her life before she accepted that they would never have forever because he would never be able to give her what she wanted, what she needed. She said she wanted forever with him, he knew he wanted eternity with her.That's what it all came back to, eternity. He had it to spare, she didn't. In all the ways they were the same they were completely different. He thought about things, the consequences of what he wanted, he knew what he could never have and he tried to accept it. Buffy, on the other hand, lived in the now. Carpe diem was her motto weather she knew it or not. She didn't want to think about the past, about things that had happened, she didn't want to think about future, about what could happen. She only wanted to think about what she had, what she figured she would always have.
He hadn't wanted to accept it, he still didn't want to, but he couldn't live in a dream anymore; they couldn't live in a dream anymore. There comes a time when you have to open your eyes and face reality and deal with whatever it threw at you. He had finally opened his eyes and he hated what he saw, but he couldn't ignore it, not any longer. Too much depended on this reality.
So, he stood in front of her, fully prepared to make her open her eyes to reality like Joyce had made him. He wasn't ready to break her heart, but there were just some things that couldn't be prepared for. He gazed down at her, wondering if he could go through with it. She was waiting for him to say something, anything. Hope flickered in her eyes. He was making it harder for both of them, he knew that, but he didn't want to see that small flame of hope burn out and he would rather die than be the one to extinguish it.
His eyes flickered up to the manhole cover above their heads. The sun was still up, but not for long. He could feel the night moving in to shroud everything in darkness. His eyes moved to the ladder that leads to the surface and briefly he wondered if he could make it to the street, to the waning sunlight, before she could stop him. It had to easier than breaking her heart as well as his own, he reasoned. But the idea was thwarted when Buffy moved to stand between him and the ladder.
She had known what he was thinking; she always seemed to know what was going on in his head. She knew why they were standing there in the sewer, she knew what he would eventually say, she that her world was going to come crashing down and he wished that she would just turn and walk away and spare him from having to say anything. But he knew she couldn't just as he couldn't walk away from her without saying it. It had to be said, they would both deny it if he didn't say it. It had to be said and he had to be the one to say it, no matter how much it hurt him. Buffy would never say it and neither of them would accept the inevitable end of what they had unless someone said it. Even then they wouldn't accept it, but they would be forced to go their separate ways. Buffy would be forced to go to the sunlight, to live her life without him, and Angel would remain part of the darkness, and live his sad existence without her by his side. What a sad existence it would be.
His dark eyes caressed her blurry face and he realized for the first time that he was crying. He didn't care. He didn't want to hide it from her. He didn't want her to think that he wasn't hurting just as much as she was. Even through his tears, she was so beautiful. A creature of the day, a being that had to be viewed in the light of a warm summer day for on to capture her true beauty. Darkness was not her friend. He was darkness. Darkness concealed her beauty, both inner and outer, darkness would slowly kill her, driving away everything beautiful, like that beach at noon in July, or the sunrise on the first day of spring, or a rainbow after spring showers. He couldn't let that happened to her. She had enough darkness in her life as it was, he would add to that.
He had to do it. He had to force her to think about the future she could have in the sunlight. He had to look into her eyes and watch her fall apart when he broke her heart.
-`When I think about the future, all I see is you.'-
Her words played over in his head. She had to know she could have a more promising future if he wasn't in it. Bu, God, he wanted to be in it. He wanted to be right in the middle of it. He wanted to be the one freaky thing in her freaky world that made sense. But he couldn't. He would give up eternity to see her in the sunlight just once. But he couldn't. So, instead, he would have to spend eternity knowing that everyone else in the world got to see her in sun's warm rays. He would spend his forever with only the memory of her love to comfort him instead of her arms and her kisses and her scent. And he heated it! He hated his parents for living in the 18th Century instead of the 20th; he hated Darla for turning him; he hated hi heart for not beating and his body for not again' he hated Joyce for forcing him to see something he wanted to remain blind to; he hated Buffy for making him fall in love with her when he could never be with her; he hated the gypsies for the clause they put in his curse. But most of all he hated himself for not being strong when they met two years past, when he had let himself give her his heart. If he had never kissed her that first time, if he'd stayed away from her that first time he had walked away from her he wouldn't be standing in front of her ready to shatter both their hearts.
`I want my life to be with you' she had said and Angel only had to say two small words to end it all and send them both reeling in pain. He prayed for the strength to do it, to say those words and make Joyce, Giles, and Xander happy. But he wanted to say to hell with them and do everything in his power to make Buffy happy. She was all that mattered, wasn't she? Yes, he told himself. And that was the exact reason that he had to do it. He had to be strong, something that he had never been. He needed strength. Strength.
He focused on her eyes. They were so old. They had seen so much pain; sadness, death and they still managed to shine with love, love for him alone. He couldn't do it, he realized.
Be strong! Do what's best for her, he yelled at himself. And he would. He would force himself to do it so that she could someday be happy in a normal life with a normal husband and normal kids. He could do it and he would do it. He would tear down her whole world so he could build a new one and be happier than he could ever make her.As he opened his mouth to say those two small words, to give up everything that had ever mattered to him, everything that had made his world worth living, everything that had given him reason to go on when he wanted to give up the most, something happened. It felt like a bolt of lightening. It shot through his body. It was pain and pleasure, sorrow and joy, mortality and immortality. It was everything. It was the most excruciating thing he had ever felt, it was the most wonderful thing he would ever feel.
He saw the sheer pain in her feature and saw that she knew what he was going to say and she was preparing herself for it. Enough time had been wasted, he decided. He reached out his hand to touch her, but let it drop back to his side when she flinched away from him. Enough was enough.
He drew a deep breath and opened his mouth again. A tear fell from her eye and his world shook. He steeled himself to say what he had to say. And he did. Quietly he said those small words that would forever change their lives and he saw tears shimmer in her eyes and she looked at him like he had hit her. He knew that she didn't quite believe what she was hearing.
He wanted her to have a normal life, as normal as she could. A world without a vampire non-lover, a life with possibilities that she couldn't even imagine. He wanted her to have a perfectly normal human husband. And he repeated those small words that had so shocked her. "So do I." He told her. And as she stared up at him in stunned silence he drew her to him and held her again his now beating heart. Normal is overrated, he decided, what's wrong with a perfectly normal ex-vampire husband?
He heard her gasp when she felt the light thumping in his once still chest and she wrapped her arms tightly around him, almost crushing his very fragile human body.
He kissed her golden hair. "Forever." He whispered into her ear. She tightened her arms around him and he winced in pain, but it was a good kind of pain. Silently she thanked whoever was listening for making her dreams come true and he thanked The Powers That Be for this final miracle.
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