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Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. 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 Note: Despite what the title might say this is not a Buffy/Angel story. It has hints of that, but it's actually Buffy/Riley. I know, I know yuck. But I couldn't resist. It takes place right after "Doomed" and she tells Riley all about Angel. It's kind of sad, and the ending is very Buffy/Riley but I think you'll enjoy it if you give it a chance. It's also a companion to my story "Letting Go of The Memories".
Buffy pulled away from Riley.
"We should talk." She said softly.
"Okay." Riley agreed and they both sat up and sat on opposite sides of his bed. "What do you want to talk about?"
"The past. I told you I'd been down this road once before and I'd like to explain." Buffy said, pushing some of her hair behind her ear.
"I was 16 when I met him, I had only been the slayer for a few months. It was my second day in Sunnydale and I was going to The Bronze. We met on the way there." Buffy smiled slightly. "It was definitely a unique meeting. Kind of like ours."
"What do you mean?" Riley asked puzzled.
"I knocked a bunch of books on your head and him flat on his back. I thought he was a vampire. He told me he didn't bite, we exchanged less than polite conversation, and he warned me about The Harvest and gave me a cross, then he disappeared."
"I'm guessing that's not the last meeting." Riley said.
"Far from it." Buffy told him softly. "We met several times until once he was forced to stay at my house. We kissed and it turned out he was a vampire."
"A vampire?" Riley asked in shock. "What did you do? Kill him?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because I loved him, and he wasn't a normal vampire. He had been cursed with a human soul. His name was Angel."
"Angel?" Riley asked with raised eyebrows.
"I know, ironic. He's also known as Angelus, The scourge of Ireland, and the one with the angelic face. We parted ways we both knew that any relationship we had was doomed from the start. But it didn't stay like that."
"What happened?" Riley asked.
"A lot of things that I'll tell you about later. We aren't discussing my history as a slayer which gets interesting, we're discussing my even more interesting history with Angel. We couldn't stay away from each other." She said softly.
"What went wrong?"
"A lot of things. We dated, we fell in love. On the night of my 17th birthday we made love." Her voice dropped to a whisper.
"He was your first?"
She nodded slowly. "He was. He lost his soul that night. The gypsies who had cursed him had put a loop whole. If he ever knew true happiness he would lose his soul."
Riley began to get it. That's why she was so careful not to get involved, the last time it had ended with him turning evil.
"And it ended there?"
"I wish." Buffy said bitterly. "No, there's still a lot of story left. I couldn't kill him. He stalked me, tortured em, killed people I cared about, even tried to bring upon the end of the world. Yet, I still loved him. I was finally ready though, I was able to do it. Then he got his soul back. I couldn't believe it, I'd never been more happy."
"What happened then?" Riley asked.
"It was too late. I had two choices send him to Hell, soul and all, or let the world end. Of course I sent him to Hell. It almost killed me. I left town after that, I couldn't deal."
"I don't blame you." Riley told her honestly. "What happened next?"
"I came back and I tried to move on. I started dating a guy named Scott, then Angel came back. I hid it from my friends for a while, but in the end it came out. I left Angel knowing that we could never be friends, and that we could never be more than that."
"Is that the end?" Riley asked her, sensing that it wasn't.
"No. We got back together. We were in love and we stayed that way. Until the prom. He broke up with me, I guess he realised what we both had known all along. That we could never have a happy ending. He left on Graduation Day, moved to L.A. Now he's saving souls."
"Saving souls?"
"Helping people." Buffy told him softly with a sad smile. "And he's trying to find his redemption."
"What about you two?"
"It's over. It has to be." Buffy told him. "And for the first time since he left I'm okay with that."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that last night when we were at the ruins of the high school I let go. Going back there meant facing the memories and I let go. I let Angel go and it hurt, but I had to move on. I can't hold on to the past forever."
"What about us?"
"I want an us." Buffy told him, moving over to kiss him softly. "You aren't Angel and the situation is different. I think we can make it work."
"So do I." Riley told her, kissing her again.
As the kiss grew, Buffy realised that there was no pang of regret that had been in all the previous kisses and the ones with Parker.
This was moving on. She had known the love of an angel, but it couldn't have lasted forever and she had to move on.
That's what she was doing.