I Will Remember You

By Felicity

SPOILERS: Graduation Part 2!!! And I know most people haven't seen it, so you might not want to read this!!!!

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters, if they were mine Angel would *never* have walked away he would have walked straight to Buffy and said "I'm never going to leave you!" and kissed her and they would have been happy for once! But I don't own them, so he didn't. So there. And Joss is evil...just thought I'd mention that.

Author's Notes: This takes place right after "Graduation, Part 2"...hopefully the WB will learn their evilness and show it soon so you can all enjoy this fic! I love comments! Email me!

I will remember you,
Will you remember me?
Don't let your life pass you by
Weep not for the memories

I wish I could speak to her, tell her all the things that run through my mind, a river of regrets and pleas. It’s better this way, I know it is. Easier for us both. Good byes are hard and ugly and they only make it hurt worse. This way, I’m just leaving, just walking away. No good byes. No tears of soul-wounds. No accusations, no anger. Just the sight of her, calm in the midst of chaos. Just turning around, walking away. So much easier this way.

There are so very many things I want to tell her. So very many things I want to ask. And no way now, no way to turn back, no way to return to what we had. I can’t go back to her now, turn around and run back as much as part of me screams to. She gave me life, but I have to give her the same. She deserves that much at least.

She deserves so much more.

Remember the good times that we had
I let them slip away when things got bad
Clearly I first saw you smiling in the sun
Wanna feel your warmth upon me
I wanna be the one

More than anything, I hope she remembers the good moments. I know I will, I’ll treasure them inside me for a hundred years, and another hundred and a thousand after that. As long as I shall live, though if there is a god I hope it is not so long as that. I hope it is not long at all. Long enough for me to help someone, and that is enough. Not long enough to see her grave because that would be too long for me, for anyone.

We had good times, as hard as it may be to remember. Always there was sadness and fear, but still…they were there. Halloween night and patrolling in the graveyard…or, well, being together in the graveyard–perhaps patrolling is not the right word. And even the worst memory is the most incredible. The most incredible thing I have ever felt. We never spoke of it, never spoke of any of them. As if they never happened, but they did. I know they did. I hope she remembers that.

Of all the memories, one I treasure more than anyone could ever know. I don’t even understand it, except that it was the beginning of my life, truly. The first time I had a soul and I wanted to live. The only time I ever saw her in the sunlight. God she was beautiful. I wanted to know her and love her and feel her strength, her sunlight on me, the only light I would ever have.

And now I walk away from that light, because I must. For her.

I will remember you
Will you remember me?
Don't let your life pass you by
Weep not for the memories

The darkness has engulfed me entirely now, folded me into it’s depths. I am darkness, nothing else. And yet I survive, I live without her light.

She saved me. It still reverberates in my soul, her blood still flows in my body. It always will. Now, truly I can say she is part of me. She gave me her life, and I cannot forgive myself for taking the gift. Yet another reason I must go–if her friends had come close to accepting me before, all that is lost now. I saw the look in their eyes, the hatred, the loathing. And I know, had I stayed, it would have grown in Buffy too. As much as she loves me, as much as she believes what I am doesn’t matter, it does. And she would have learned it, had I stayed. She would have dreamt of me and woken screaming. Now, if she does remember, maybe she will remember the good. Maybe she will remember the gentle.

I know I will always remember the good in her.

I'm so tired but I can't sleep
Standin' on the edge of something much to deep,
It's funny how we feel so much but can't say a word
We are screamin' inside,
Oh but can't be heard

Later, much later, I try to sleep, but it is impossible. I lay awake in the small L.A. apartment I rented, aching in every part of me because I know, I know, that I won’t be able to go out that night and find her talking to her friends at the Bronze. I know I won’t be able to walk the alleys, knowing I’ll find her sooner or later. Because I’ll never find her again. It hurts so much and I wonder whether she even knows, if she ever suspected.

She told me, before the arrow, before the poison, that it was eays for me. She asked me how this could be and yet she doesn’t understand that it isn’t, in the slightest way. I just can’t say it as she can. I could scream forever, but the scream is inside.

As it is now.

I wonder, if I did scream, if I let all the pain out, if I put it all into words and cried them–would she hear? Would she come? Would she even care?

I will remember you,
Will you remember me?
Don't let your life pass you by
Weep not for the memories

No matter where I go from here, no matter how long I live, I will always feel her hands on my face, her lips on mine. I will always see her hair, her eyes lit by the sun, by the moon, by no light at all except that which she made herself, which she carried with her everywhere. I know I cannot expect that from her, I do not want it. My remembrance, my love, that will never change, will never fade. I have nowhere else for it to go. I will fight evil and I will dream of her and that is all. But she…she will have a boyfriend and a husband and children, and she will watch other Slayers come and maybe stay and maybe not and she will walk on the beach and watch the sun rise and set. She will play with her children and her grandchildren and love her husband for as many years as she lives and then she will die, someday, in many many years if there is a god at all.

And a selfish part of me, my soul, hopes she will remember me too.

I don’t want her to remember as I remember; to let the memories become her life. And the bad memories, the darkness and the pain; I hope all that dissapears with time. But the good, the light and the love, the true love that I know we had, I hope that endures with her forever as it will with me.

I'm so afraid to love you but more afraid to lose
Clinging to a past that doesn't let me choose
Well, once there was a darkness, deep and endless night
You gave me everything you had
Oh you gave me life

I was so scared to love her for so long; first, because I thought she would know who I was, and then, when I had reason because I could not let myself hurt her ever again. She made me realize that I couldn’t help it, that loving her wasn’t a choice or a decision. It was blood and soul and spirit–just as Spike told us. And her mother made me realize that it was that, that blood and that soul that was the very reason I had to leave. The past was just that–we had no choices then, no chance to go back and change what had happened. Perhaps it was destiny. But I can change the future.

Before Buffy I was nothing, I was darkness and despair and guilt and self-pity. I was everything wasted in this world, everything that is worse nothing. And then I saw her, and she brought me out of it. She drew me out of a hundred years of darkness with her smile and her beauty and everything that was her. All her strength and courage and laughter. She gave me life and then, even when I would leave her, she gave it to me again, only this time, there was a price. She gave me her life and I can only be glad I did not take it because then it would be worthless; I could not have lived, knowing she had died, and then her blood would have been worth nothing. But she didn’t die. I didn’t kill her. She gave me life, and had enough to keep some for herself.

And maybe, now that I have life but not her, maybe the life will endure anyway.

I will remember you
Will you remember me?
Don't let your life pass you by
Weep not for the memories

"Live, Buffy," I whisper into the stillness. "Live a full life and love unconditionally. Don’t cry for the pain or for what we lost. Tears won’t change anything. But live. Just live. And remember me."

The darkness softens somehow, and as I close my eyes I can see her face, hear her voice. I can feel her, curled up beside me, her face pressed against my neck, her fingers twined with mine. I have a life ahead of me too, a long one. And maybe I must live as well. Something new to learn anyway. Knowing this, believing this, feeling her as if she were really beside me, I finally find the strength to let myself drift away, into sleep, one last cry to her whispering in my mind. I love you, and forever, through out this world and any other, I will always remember you.

I will remember you
Will you remember me?
Don't let your life pass you by
Weep not for the memories

The End