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Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy or Angel. I wish I did, but I don’t. They belong to 20th Century Fox, Joss Whedon, and Mutant Enemy. I am using them without permission, however I am not making any money off them so please do not sue me.
Author's Notes: This is a strange fanfic. It turned out very different than what I had in mind. The story seemed to write itself with only a little help from me. It’s Angel’s POV and takes place sometime in the future. It’s dark and angsty. Buffy dies and Angel reflects. This is not a happy piece, but I think it turned out okay. Enjoy.
Feedback: Please, I want to know what people think of my stories. But could you please keep criticism constructive not cruel? Tell me that I made a few spelling errors, or that I need to improve this or that. Don’t tell me that my stories suck and that I’m dumb. All that does is hurt my feelings.
Sometimes the tears just won’t come, this is one of those times. I want to cry, but I can’t. Something is stopping me.
Maybe it’s guilt, or maybe I feel I don’t have the right to morn for her. I left her 10 years ago and I closed that door, I just didn’t think it would be forever.
But it is.
She’s gone and it’s forever, nothing will bring her back this time. I wish to God that I could bring her back, but I know it’s impossible.
She’s gone.
“One door closes and another opens.”
That phrase has been in my mind lately. I wonder what door will open now that this door has closed.
But mostly I think about the past and what we shared. I can still see her the way she was the first time I saw her.
It seems like it was a lifetime ago now. And it was. I think that in the last 253 years I’ve lived 7 lives, now I’m starting my 8th.
My first life was my mortal one, the one I never fully appreciated until it was gone. I can see now several lifetimes later all the mistakes that I made.
I was a fool and I didn’t know it until it was too late for me to do anything about it.
When I was young I hated the thought of being like everyone else. Of getting married, having children, and dying when my mortal life had run it’s course. I dreamed of external youth and immortality.
Now that I have them I wish for what I once dreaded. I wish I had gotten to have that everyday life, but it wasn’t meant for me.
I wasn’t meant to live a mortal life, I know that but I still wish it wasn’t true. You never know what you have until it’s gone.
My second life is the one which I regret the most.
My demon life, my longest life. It lasted 118 years and I regret every one of those years.
I try not to think about those years because they hold no fond memories. Every memory from those years fills me with dread and regret. Those were the years in which I made my gravest mistakes.
The third life is the one I lived from the time I was cursed to the day I met her.
Those years were the loneliest I’ve ever spent. I was completely alone in the world, all I had was my guilt. I don’t know how I managed to survive at all.
Those years aren’t pleasant memories for me, they’re actually the opposite. Whenever I think about them I feel so lost and so alone.
The fourth life is very different. It’s the happiest of all my lives. It was the little over a year from the time I first saw her to her 17th birthday.
I had never known what it was like to feel like that before. To love someone so much that you feel they’re apart of you and you them.
But I did. I loved her with everything in me and I didn’t want to stop. I can remember the joy I felt the first time I saw her. I felt as if my pain and suffering was about to end.
But that was nothing compared to the joy I felt the one time I held her in my arms. I felt as if I had died and gone to heaven.
But that happiness came with a price. I lost my soul and my fifth life began. It’s another painful one.
The months I tortured her and inflicted pain upon the one I loved more than anything else. I can still remember every cruel word I said to her, every torture I inflicted. I was a monster and she should have killed me when she had the chance.
But she didn’t because she loved me as much as I loved her and she couldn’t control it anymore than I could.
We were prisoners to our love, we had no choice. We were but pawns in a game a higher power was playing.
The sixth life began when I returned from Hell. I was a different man than I had been when I had last been with her.
This time we both knew we could never again lose ourselves in our love. We could be together, but we’d always have to keep our distance. Never again could we truly be together. I loved her, but it wasn’t enough. I knew if I stayed I’d lose myself in her again.
So I left. I began my 7th life. I went to L.A and I started over, but everywhere I went I was haunted by the memory of my beloved. No matter how much I ran I could never escape what we had shared.
Eventually I accepted it and I was able to have a life without her. Not a great life, but a life.
Then she died. She left me forever.
I always knew that she would die and I would live. I’m immortal, she wasn’t. But I guess I wouldn’t allow myself to think about what would happen, now I have to.
I have to live knowing that she’s lost to me forever.
Only the memories are left. The memories of a love that should never have been.
That will be eighth life, I don’t know when my ninth will begin, but maybe it’ll be my last. Maybe I’m like a cat and I only have nine lives, I hope so.
I hope I only have to go through 9 separate lives when most people only have one.
I don’t know, I really don’t. I do know that the tears have finally come.
I can finally cry. For her, for us, for the lifetimes I’ve seen, for the peace that has forever eluded me.
My curse wasn’t a human soul. It was having to live forever being on the outside looking in. To see a world to which I will never really belong and to find a love who’ll I never be able to be with.
That was my curse.