TITLE: What I Really Meant to Say 1/1 - Unrepentant B/A Angst/Mush-let 
AUTHOR: Ducks, The Anti-Joss 
E-MAIL: ducksfanfic@yahoo.com 
DISCLAIMER: None of this is my property. Obviously. 
IMPROV #22 - sugar, frame, sheer, time 
RATING: PG-13. Vague references to sex 
PAIRING: B/A 
TIMELINE: Post-Shanshu 
SPOILERS: Vague for B/A Canon 
SYNOPSIS: 10 years later, what they say and what they really mean to say don't mesh. 
DISTRIBUTION: Improv, Land of Denial, others who house my fic are welcome to it. 
Anyone else, just let me know. 
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Pure angsty fluff. Inspired by the song of the same name by Cyndi 
Thompson. 
FEEDBACK: But of course... 
 
To my honeys Anja, Serena, and Dru, who never, ever let me down with the superfast 
beta.  Especially to Serena, who suspended her disbelief.  SURE they could have gone 
ten years without speaking!  Just go with it. ;) 
 
"What I Really Meant to Say" 1/1 
by Ducks 
 
*** 
"It took me by surprise 
When I saw you standing there 
Close enough to touch 
Breathing the same air. 
You asked me how I've been, 
And I guess that's when I smiled and said "Just fine." 
But baby, I was lying..." 
*** 
 
The first thing she thinks when she runs  him on her way into Java Joe's 
is 'Isn't it funny how things always happen to me like this?' She can't quite say if 
that's a blessing or a curse, but it seems like she's forever running into bits and 
pieces of her past, even ten years after the Hellmouth closed. Like the time she was 
walking home from a late night chickflick fest at Willow and Tara's, and she and Dawn 
were jumped by a vampire of the non-Spike variety, when there weren't supposed to 
*be* any non-Spike vampires anymore. Or how four years ago, just when they thought 
they were going to have to give up the house because all the money was gone, a 
cashier's check for $50,000.00 appeared in the mail, with an anonymous note that 
said, "Thank you for saving the world." 
 
Little blessings, little curses, but they reminded her of what had been. She doesn't 
really mind, either. The reminders are soothing, somehow, calling to mind  simpler, happier times, when her place in the world was clear, her mom was 
still alive, Giles was still her guiding light, and Angel's love was so sure and 
strong that all the wild unpredictabilities of pretty much everything else didn't 
matter at all. 
 
And now, of course, this. What were the odds that, in a city populated by millions of 
people, and with a coffee shop on every other street corner, that the two of them 
would choose to patronize the exact same one at the exact same time? 
 
It had always been a possibility, she knew, however slim. He was here somewhere, and 
the Fates always messed with her like that. 
 
Always little reminders. Strokes of sheer, blind luck.  She chose *today* to drive in 
from Sunnydale to go shopping before her weakly dinner with Dawn.  She chose *now* 
and *here* for a quick coffee break between lingerie and shoes... 
 
So she runs right into him as he's coming out and she's going in, and his plain, 
old-fashioned black coffee splashes everywhere, dousing his enormous, muscular 
 frame with hot brown liquid. And she starts to apologize before she even 
knows its him  and her eyes shoot up to 
give her victim a chagrined smile, but instead, her jaw drops clear to the sidewalk, 
and suddenly she's plunging, swimming  in fathomless pools of shining 
chocolate as she finds herself looking into that still oft-dreamed-of face... 
 
A smile bursts across that face like the sun through storm clouds, and those 
sugar-sweet eyes twinkle just like they always did, just for her, like it hasn't been 
ten years since they saw one another, and 15, in fact, since he last looked at her 
that way... 
 
 
 
Her heart takes off on its trademark Angel-race, and for the first time in forever, 
her every muscle trembles with fight or flight, and her breath catches in her throat, 
and she wants to scream and run, or grab him and kiss him silly, and... 
 
Funny, neither of them makes any move to wipe the coffee away. 
 
"Buffy," he says, and the fabric of her reality tears open wide and swallows her 
whole as she fights to remember how to move, how to breathe, how to talk, how to... 
 
 
 
"Angel?" she says, and it's that same old question -- Are you really here?  Are you *real*? 
 
Then his big hand comes up what seems like automatically and  he mops clumsily at her dress.  She can't be 
sure, because she's overwhelmed by the foreign, purely magical sound of his laughter, 
and he's steering her out of the line of lunchtime traffic and cleaning her up like 
she's a kid with ice cream all over face, and he's a doting parent. 
 
 
 
She realizes that he's talking. Apologizing for being so clumsy  and 
suddenly she also realizes that her speech center has taken over, and she's chuckling 
wryly and making some witty comment about how they have to stop meeting like this 
 
 
When he's done wiping at her, he does the same to himself, but gives it up as 
hopeless with a chuckle and a dismissive 'oh well', and says how he doesn't really 
mind third degree burns over 3/4 of his torso, just so long as it's her that 
inflicted them  
 
His hands stop, and time stops with them as he gazes down at her. Isn't it funny how 
things always happen to her this way, and she could swear she still sees forever in 
his eyes? 
 
"How have you been?" 
 
That's the million-dollar question, isn't it? The one that everybody who's vanished 
from your life always asks. She knows the truth isn't the right response and so she 
lies and spins a summary tale of Dawn-raising and college-graduating and having a 
real job that actually pays money and doesn't require putting her life on the line at 
every turn, although the kids she teaches seem to get scarier and scarier every year, 
so you never know ha ha. She moves on into Xander and Anya married and spawning like 
the bunnies the latter still carries an irrational fear of, and Willow and Tara in a 
big house on the outskirts of town with an obscene number of cats, and Giles moving 
back to England to retire and marrying some genius supermodel or something, and Dawn 
marrying a football player, of all things and living here in LA now, writing horror 
novels and playing part-time cheerleader. Isn't that ironic? Ha ha. 
 
He kills her comfortable, chattering denial with six simple worlds, a perfectly 
reasonable question to ask, really, and couldn't he have just plunged a stake through 
her heart? 
 
"What about you? Are you married?" 
 
What about me? Am I married? Oh, he means, 'you're not a desperately lonely spinster 
who still pines away after a decade for a love that never should have been and never 
could be and you don't still remember the taste of my lips  and the touch of my hand and one night making love that 
you recall in perfect, heart-shattering detail, are you?' 
 
"Me? Oh... God no," she laughs, "Almost, once, but..." But why? She has to explain, 
it's the proper thing to do... to tell him *why* without telling him  the truth, "I like my freedom way too much." 
 
And boy, is that the biggest lie yet. Her heart shrieks, 'I STILL WANT YOU! ONLY 
YOU!', but she manages to hold on to her smile even in the wake of his. 
 
"I'm surprised," he informs her. 
 
She follows the script with an, "And what about you? You're all human and studly, you 
must be lousy with chicks."  and then 
 
 
"Also an 'almost, but never'," he replies, and she can almost taste the sadness in 
it. "A couple hundred years as a loner doesn't exactly qualify me as an ideal mate." 
 
Her heart rejoices, but she doesn't know why it should, because it's not like he ever 
called *her* or showed up on her doorstep like he always does in her dreams, with 
promises of a finite human eternity by her side because she's the only one he's ever 
loved... ever *could* love and they live happily ever after. 
 
"Oh," she says, and she realizes with terror that her automatic script reading brain 
center has finally shorted out and she's not sure what happens next. 
 
The silence falls and they stand there staring at one another, years of longing and 
regret echoing in their heartbeats. She doesn't know who looks away first, but he 
finally says he should go, he has a meeting with a client and he's already late, and 
now he has to change, but at least he can honestly say he had an accident, ha ha. You 
take care of yourself, a gentle hand on her shoulder and don't be a stranger as he 
presses a business card into her trembling hand with a number printed on it < is that 
a lobster?> they both know she'll never use, and then he's turning and walking away 
with a final backward glance, a sad half-smile and a little wave, and God, she'd 
forgotten how magnificently he moved. Her soul explodes and shoves at her and wails, 
 
 
 
But she's frozen in place, and he's already gone, and time starts to move again just 
like it always does, but now she's filled with a whole new-old agony and her heart is 
sobbing his name over and over again. 
 
She forgets about coffee. Forgets about her planned shopping spree. Begs off dinner 
with Dawn and Matt  and crawls home, more weary than she was 
after that last battle to save the world... the last time he had turned and walked 
away and said, "See you around." 
 
Funny, that she *feels* like crying, but she doesn't, and kicks herself over and over 
again for all of the things she didn't/couldn't say. But that's not new, she's never 
been a good communicator, and she's spent half her life beating herself up over one 
thing or another anyhow... 
 
So she feeds Romeo & Juliet  and shampoos the living room carpet and does the laundry, mows the lawn and 
reads for a while until she falls asleep on the couch and dreams of cool kisses in 
graveyards and longing for a future that never was. 
 
It's late when the doorbell rings -- about Spike-chess hour, actually. With no demon 
ass left to kick and not much better to do with his time, he often shows up with a 
bottle of bourbon and a gory slasher flick, and they get drunk and play chess and 
critique the killing methods in the stupid movies and wax poetic about the Bad Old 
Days like a couple of old folks in a park somewhere... in Stephen King's world... 
 
But tonight, she's not in the mood for Spike, and so she prepares to send him away as 
she hauls her weary carcass to the door, and pulls it open with a, "Not tonight, 
okay? I had a really bad..." 
 
She blinks rapidly at the virtual meadow of wildflowers in her face, and gasps aloud 
to find a sheepish smile glowing at her from above it. 
 
"Hi. I, uh..." Angel swallows hard, and Buffy watches his Adam's apple bob up and 
down with dumbfounded fascination as he fumbles for words. "Look, I lied to you this 
afternoon. I never got married -- I never even came close -- because... no one else 
was ever you, and you were all I ever wanted, so it just seemed like a big waste of 
everyone's time to try. I've almost called you a million times over the years, but I 
was afraid you'd moved on like I asked you to, and you'd tell me you weren't 
interested anymore... in a nicer way, of course, but... I didn't think I could 
survive that. So I thought leaving well enough alone was the way to go. I had a life 
to build, and you were fine, and... I figured that eventually, I'd forget. That's the 
way it works, right? Time dulls the pain and fades the memories. But it never has, 
Buffy. I still think of you every day, and dream about you every night. And when I 
ran into you this afternoon, it was like... someone ripped the blinders I'd been 
living behind away, and I was standing there, lying to you, while my heart was 
screaming and my hands were itching to reach out and touch you. The truth is, I've 
never stopped loving you. Not even for a second. Not even after all these years. 
And... I want another chance.  I want us to... try, at least. I want to be with 
you -- that's all I've ever really wanted. And... that's what I really meant to say." 
 
His babbling pounds and rips into her like sharp-edged rocks and waves of warm 
comfort all at once, and to her great horror, something inside her snaps like a 
rubberband, and she finds herself bursting into tears, leaping straight into his 
arms, and smothering his  beloved, 
beautiful face with desperate kisses. The flowers are crushed between them, and the 
air is infused with honeysuckle and earth and home and God, I missed you. 
 
He carries her upstairs and makes love to her slowly, all the while whispering 
promises of a finite human eternity by her side, because she's the only one he's ever 
loved... ever *could* love, just like he always does in her dreams, and when they 
finally slip into sleep, two melted puddles of blissful mush, wrapped tight in each 
other's arms, she's soothed by the rhythm of his heartbeat against her back and his 
warm breath puffing softly against her neck, and she thinks, 
 
'Isn't it funny, how things always happen to me like this?' 
 
*** 
 
"What I really meant to say 
Is I'm dying here inside 
And I miss you more each day 
There's not a night I haven't cried. 
Baby, here's the truth: 
I'm still in love with you. 
 
What I really mean to say 
Is that I'm really not that strong 
No matter how I try, 
I'm still holding on. 
And here's the honest truth: 
I'm still in love with you. 
 
That's what I really meant to say." 
 
~~~ 
 
FINIS :)

E-MAIL: ducksfanfic@yahoo.com 

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