I Would
By Felicity

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters in this fic. They (poor dears) belong to Joss Whedon, the WB, Fox, Mutant Enemy and so on and so forth. I don't own the song either, it's called "Posession" and it belongs to Sarah McLachlan. You can find it on her albums Fumbling Towards Ecstasy and Mirrorball.

Author's Notes: This takes place sometime in the fall of the fourth season of Buffy. Mmm, I love comments! Email me!

Listen as the wind blows from across the great divide
Voices trapped in yearning, memories trapped in time
The night is my companion and solitude my guide
Would I spend forever here and not be satisfied?

For a moment, as the stake sunk into the vampire’s heart, Angel heard them. Allof them. All the people he hurt, all the lives he wrenched away. They cried to him, longed for him. They would have him someday, pull him down into their Hell. Or maybe he was already there.

A moment only, and then all was gone, and the wind blew the ashes of his latest kill away. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The wind gusted harder and trees shook, shedding golden leaves on the graves they watched. Were any of these headstones for people he brought low? Were the voices here? But then, not all of them belonged to the buried. She called him, day and night. Mostly night though, as he wandered the city, meandered through the graveywards. Guarded the innocnet. Now there was a laugh. Who in this city was innocent?

And who was he to guard innocence anyway?

Angel turned from his thoughts, walked into the wind. The trees stirred as he walked beneath them, suddenly desperate to get out of the graveyard, to get away from the memories of another graveyard, one that he wasn’t alone in.

Alone was all he was now.

The night was all he ever allowed himself to be.

Darkness enveloped Angel as he walked, made him into something else. More or less, who knew. This was his life now, he reminded himself. This was his reality. And he knew, deep inside, he could have had so much more. He could have been so much more.

I would be the one to hold you down
Kiss you so hard, I’ll take your breath away
And after I wipe away the tears
Just close your eyes dear

Dawn was still an hour away, but the sky already held the faintest blush in it’s darkness. Without a thought, Angel turned for home, as if anyplace was home, could be called that, except wherever she was, where he could never be. Not in this life, in this world.

But anywhere else…if things were different he would be different. Stronger. Buffy was always the strong one, the one who wanted, while he deferred, protested. In another world, Angel would let himself want. In another world, letting himself feel would not be letting the demon roam.

In another world Angel would not call a small dark apartment home, would not live in the night, alone.

Such thoughts were pointless, he knew. He was dangerously close to slipping back into the vicious cycle of guilt and self-pity that had engulfed him for nearly a century, before Whistler came. Before her. His life was nothing now, again. It always came back to that somehow. Was Buffy the difference? Was that truly all he was? he wondered as he closed the blinds carefully and slipped into the satin sheets, trying desperately to leave behind thoughts and regrets, to become in sleep what he could never be in the waking world.

Through this world I stumbled, so many times betrayed
Trying to find an honest word to fight the truth enslaved
Oh you speak to me in riddles and you speak to me in rhymes
My body aches to breath your breath, your words keep me alive

One moment he struggled and the next he was there, in that empty, endless plain. The floor was black glass, sending his own reflection back at him.

His reflection. Here, he was whatever he needed to be.

He needed to be hers.

"Angel," she gasped, from behind him. He swing around to face her, his eyes dark and shrouded, finding the face he knew so well, shaped from his memories and yet more–she looked older now and her hair was shoulder length again. And none of his memories showed the emptiness in her eyes.

"Beautiful here, isn’t it?" he said lightly, glancing around at their surroundings. The sky was black without stars, and yet it was light there.

"In a freaky, dream-like kind of way," she agreed uneasily. Her eyes found his. "Did you bring me here Angel?"

"Maybe you did," he replied, loving the sight of her eyes flashing, the hands on the hips. The corner of his lips tugged upwards at the annoyance in her face.

"You know, I got to school all day, I stay out patrolling all night. I come home for a couple of hours of sleep, and find you here going all Cryptic Guy on me!" she exclaimed, something painful surfacing beneath the indignation in her eyes, something old and wounded. The smile dissapeared.

He drank it in, all of it, every word, every breath, every little gesture. He wanted it, all of it, craved it. It was like blood lust. These few moments could keep him going for a week, a month even. If he had her breath, it would be more than that, it would be forever. If he could become human, swallow her breathing…

With a step he had caught her slender body, in a second more, her sweet, sweet mouth. He drank all the words beofre they were said, stole her breath, ached because this was as close as he could get, because no matter where he was, this world or the other, he could never be part of her.

And I would be the one to hold you down
Kiss you so hard I’ll take your breath away
And after I wipe away the tears
Just close your eyes dear

He let her go, savoring the tiny gasp she emitted, capturing the sight of her gasping for air. As suddenly as she had breathed it in, she let it out, laying her head against his chest. "Angel," she murmured, softly, joy and grief and bitterness caught upon the sweet sound of his name on her tongue.

"God I’ve missed you," he said hoarsely, wondering how his voice could echo so much in a place without walls or ceiling. Missed you…missed you… She tilted her head back and looked up at him with pleading blue-green eyes.

"Then come back. Please Angel, I know you want me, you want to come back. That kiss–"

"Things are different here," he informed her. "I can’t come back, not in life. Not in the real world."

"Then how can you kiss me like that here?" Buffy demanded, tears springing to her beautiful eyes, nearly overflowing as he cupped her face with large rough hands.

"Because here I am everything I can never be there." As if drawn by his thought, she looked down, to their reflections on the smooth dark glass of the floor. To his reflection.

"You–" she breathed, cutting off and looking up at him. She swallowed hard. "Is this all I can ever have of you then?" His dark eyes answered her, thought he never could, not in words.

"If I were human," he whispered, and crushed her mouth beneath his, swallowing the tiny sound she made. She stiffened for a moment, surprised by the hunger in the kidd, the raw need he had never hinted at before. Always he was gentle, always he thought only of her. Now he let his passion soar, trusting Buffy to keep up. His hands tightened on her shoulders and after a second, she did, rising to meet him, savaging his mouth as he did hers, releasing all the pent up longing she’d held for so long.

He felt her join him, knew for the first time what it was to kiss the Slayer without restraint. He knew, for that moment, what could have been.

And through this night I wande,r it’s morning light I dread
Another day of knowing of the path I fear to tread
Into the sea of waking dreams I follow without pride
For nothing stands between us here and I won’t be denied

"Don’t let me wake up Angel," Buffy murmured to his jaw. He closed his eyes, imagining the world, his apartment. It seemed so unreal now. Here, with Buffy, that was real. That was as it should be.

But she would wake, with the morning, and it was useless being here without her. Almost as useless as being there without her, being awake, facing reality, wondering how he would live through that night and the night after that and the night after that.

"Don’t let yourself," he answered into her hair, her sweet, soft, golden hair, shining in the light of–what? There was no sun, no moon, no stars. In the light of herself, Angel decided. She was her own light.

"I’m scared of my life Angel. I’m scared I’ll never be happy again," Buffy whispered.

"Do you know what I’m scared of?" he asked. She looked up at him with a question in her eyes. "The exact same thing."

"You’re scared of more than that. You’re scared you’ll hurt people again," Buffy said shrewdly, her eyes narrowing as if she could see inside his mind. "You’re scared I’ll stop loving you. You’re scared you’ll live forever, without me." He regarded her silently, not admitting anything. He didn’t need to, she knew she was right.

"I’ll never stop loving you, you know," she remarked conversationally. "And you won’t hurt people again, ever. And I’ll always be here."

"And here, nothing is between us," he told her.

"Nothing but love," she whispered in reply. "Kiss me again Angel."

He did, painfully, because it hurt so much to her again. But the tears that poured from her eyes weren’t from pain, not that kind. The teardrops slid between their mouths, tempered the sweetnes with the bitter knowledge of parting.

And I would be the one to hold you down
Kiss you so hard I’ll take your breath away
And after I’d wipe away the tears
Just close your eyes dear

"Do you really love me this much, or is it another dream?" Buffy asked, ignoring the tears coursing down her cheeks. Gently, Angel began to wipe them away.

"It’s a dream," he told her calmly. "It’s my dream."

"No," she denied, "ours." He conceded the point, a calloused finger brushing the last tear away.

"Ours. But I would love you more than this."

"You would," she echoed hollowly, pain filling her voice, more tears replacing the ones he’d wiped away.

"If this were the world, or even close. If I could have your breath in truth and breathe with you instead of stealing it away. If I wasn’t darkness and you weren’t light. If I hadn’t tortured you and you hadn’t sent me to Hell. If–"

"So many ifs," she broke in, her voice nearly angry, though he knew it was pain, only pain.

"I would," he repeated, his hand cupping her cheek, smoothing across her forehead. She looked down and saw that her hands were translucent.

"I’m going to wake up," she breathed, and then looked up at him with horror dawning in her eyes. "Angel, I don’t want to go!"

"Shh," he soothed her. "Close your eyes." Her brow arched and she attempted to lighten the moment.

"Promise not to send me to Hell?" His mouth quirked.

"I promise." She grew serious suddenly and clutched at his arm.

"Angel, life without you is Hell."

He was silent. Then, "Close your eyes." The tears slid from beneath her eyelids when she obeyed, and his hands threaded into her hair before his mouth captured hers again. His eyes closed too, and so neither of them saw her fading, and he didn’t know until it was too late to call her back and he was fading too, pulled away from what he would have been, back to the reality of what he was.

I’ll hold you down kiss you so hard
I’ll take your breath away
And after I wipe away your tears
Just close your eyes…

The End