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Buffy stirred, felt him beside her and smiled; remembered, and cried.
“Shh, it’s all right. It’ll be all right,” he murmered, cradling her in his arms. She shook her head, ands the tears kept coming. They’d been coming all night. She hadn’t known she could cry so much.
“It won’t be all right. Not ever. You are so beautiful and wonderful and I love you so and it can’t be all right. Never,” Buffy sobbed against his bare chest. She was undressed too, and that brought back all the memories. All the wonderful memories. It had been more than she’d ever imagined . . . And it was the last time. The only time.
She kissed him again, and lay with her head on his chest, his arms around her and their legs entangled for a long time. If only she could stay there forever . . . but she couldn’t. Even if she never got up, she would be pulled away, and when she did come back, it wouldn’t be to Angel’s apartment, to his bed, to his arms. It would be . . . probably to her own bed, she supposed. She couldn’t know. She couldn’t know anything.
“Do you have to go home?” Angel asked after a moment. Buffy propped herself up on his chest to look at him and shook her head. There were no tears now. For the moment.
“I called earlier and told my mom I was staying over at Willow’s to study,” Buffy said. Angel gave her a startled look and Buffy smiled slightly.
“I didn’t plan this, if that’s what that look means. I just . . . didn’t want to go home,” Buffy said. Which was true. She didn’t. She couldn’t. She couldn’t go anywhere, because wherever she went it wouldn’t help. Nothing would.
“Why not?” Angel asked. Buffy lay down again and closed her eyes, unable to answer. There was a long silence, and then he slid out of the bed. “I’ll turn off the lights so you can sleep.” She almost told him she wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway—which was true—then realized she should at least try. After all, she had another twelve hours to be awake and then she had to kill a vampire. Even if she knew she wouldn’t be able to, she should try.
The tears started again as she watched him. She started to smile, seeing his lithe body which could do such things to her . . . but only the tears came, because whatever he could do, this was the last time.
“Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all,” Buffy whispered, suprising herself. Shouldn’t it be Willow quoting that line?
“What?” Angel asked, turning. He switched the lights off and she could see the shadow of him coming towards her again.
“Nothing,” Buffy whispered louder, trying to block the tears that burned in her eyes. She had cried so much already, surely she was done. But when he climbed in beside her and she felt his flesh again, she knew she was only beginning.
She clutched at him, and before she could stop them the words had tumbled from her mouth like water over a cliff.
“If you could choose—choose to change history so that you—you never became a vampire—would you?” she asked. She knew she shouldn’t have said it, but it was out now and there was no stopping it.
Angel was silent for a long time. He didn’t answer right away, but asked her a question instead.
“Why do you want to know?” he asked.
“It’s not so much a WANT to know thing as a NEED to know thing,” Buffy said. He was silent for another moment and she thought he wasn’t going to answer. And then he spoke again.
“If it was for all the people I’ve hurt—for my family, for Drusilla, for that gypsy girl and her tribe, even for Spike—then I would change history.”
“But?” Buffy asked, hearing something more in his voice. She pulled herself up and propped herself on his chest, wishing she could see him better. His hand came up and stroked her hair, and she could tell even in the darkness that he was looking straight at her when he answered.
“But if it was for me I wouldn’t change a thing,” he said quietly.
“But you—” Buffy began, honestly shocked. He cut her off.
“If I hadn’t become a vampire, I would never have met you. And that would be worse than all the torment I’ve been through. You complete me in a way no one or thing ever has. You are all the light, all the sunshine I thought I’d lost forever.” Buffy was crying again—crying for joy and for sorrow because she knew, no matter what he said, she wouldn’t be able to stand by and watch Darla bite him. Watch him kill his family. Or even walk away, knowing they would die.
“But you had sunlight before,” she protested.
“Yes. But it wasn’t the same. I would give anything to be human again. Anything but you. I love you Buffy,” Angel said, then kissed her deeply. She was crying harder now. He wanted to be with her, and she with him and yet she had to make it so that they would never meet.
“You are a stupid, stupid man,” Buffy sobbed. “And I love you more than
anything.” There weren’t words after that, only Angel trying to give
comfort and Buffy wishing she could take it. At some point she slipped
off the edge of weariness and fell into sleep.
Part 4 a continuation of the alternate ending
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