Only One
by Ducks

In every heart,
There is a room
A sanctuary, safe and strong
To heal the wounds from lover's past...
Until a new one comes along...

It's funny, really, how a room fills with her when she enters... It's as if the electricity ever present in the air is turned up to its highest setting. Like the air is on fire... it crackles with her essence, and I can feel every cell of me stir with the energy of her presence.

If I breathed, she would take my breath away.

She seems to change, every day. Some little, subtle, physical changes as she gets older... that slight mellowing of her personality... the growing wisdom of her soft, green eyes...

I have loved Buffy Summers for as long as I can remember. Or at least, as long as I bother to remember. Everything that came before is dark, now, hidden from me . Or perhaps, I am hidden from it, shielded by the love of this incredible woman.

She grows more beautiful, with each passing year. And my love only grows with her beauty.

"You're staring at me..." she observes, looking up from the magazine she's reading.

"Am I?" I say innocently, struck dumb by the glow the firelight casts on her living skin, "I'm sorry."

Her eyes are soft as she looks at me. "I didn't say I mind..." she says quietly.

I spoke to you
in cautious tones.
You answered me
with no pretense
And still I feel I've said too much.
My silence is my self-defense.

I get up from my chair to sit beside her on the couch. I love that look in her eyes as she watches me move toward her... that look that is still equally adoring and passionate, after all these years. It's like her look carries me softly across the room, and tracks my every motion until my body and soul are only inches away.

I take her in my arms, and she settles back against me, sighing contentedly. We don't need to say a word... I know we are thinking the same things: how hard it was to get to this comfortable place we are now... how many battles we have fought, how many tears we'd shed, to be together.

I kiss the top of her head softly and lean my cheek on it. We sit and watch the fire, and I breath in her sweet scent and listen to her strong heartbeat.

And every time I've held a rose
It seems I only felt the thorns...
And so it goes,
And so it goes,
And so will you soon, I suppose...

I can think about our past now, with only the slightest bit of pain. The 20 years we have been together has been filled with enough joy to make all the past and its knife-sharp edges, fade to a dull melancholy. Those memories now are soft as cotton, dulled by the million, billion moments we have shared in the years since the darkness...

I do remember, still. It has become my habit to be a little brooding... Although the constant ache of guilt, and the pain of being separated from her, are long gone, the dark days still live in the back of my mind, if only as a reminder of how precious our hard-won life together is.

There was a time... A long time, in fact, when the distance between us was like an empty, gaping chasm, echoing with regret and silence... When our connection never weakened, no matter what else passed in our separate lives, we suffered through un-easable pain... There were infinite moments I longed to share with her, then... Countless times when it was all I could do not to pick up the phone and call her and tell her everything that came into my mind...

Then, I thought it was best to remain silent... alone. I was convinced that was what she needed, to be happy. So I kept my peace, if you could call it that, and suffered in solitude, pain my only true companion.

But if my silence
Made you leave
Then that would be my worst mistake
So I will share
This room with you
And you can have this heart to break...

Those endless times are moot, now... those wasted moments are better forgotten, in light of all the joy we share every day, today. Five years is but a blink of an eye, in the endless life of a vampire, and twenty is barely more than that.

But it's the twenty that is my foundation. It is Buffy and I now that is my core.

"What are you thinking about?" she asks me softly, her sweet voice barely more than a breath.

I smile. "Time," I tell her.

She leans away and looks up at me, "You're thinking about time?" She mocks me all the time about my introspective ways -- she often accuses me of being a "morbid philosophy junkie". I imagine that isn't too far off the mark. But when you've been alive for 270 years, give or take, you have a lot to ruminate over...

Leaning against her, my smile grows an inch, "Thinking about how fast the past twenty years has gone by..."

She chuckles softly. "As compared to..."

"The twenty years before that." I reply.

And this is why my eyes are closed
It's just as well, for all I've seen...
And so it goes,
And so it goes,
And you're the only one who knows.

She sits up and backs away from me, a little. She's not smiling anymore. Looking at the sadness that shadows her pretty face, I suddenly feel like all the warmth has fled the room.

"Angel, can I ask you something?" She says, casting her eyes down, her voice pensive.

I reach out and take her hand, trying not to get too worried.

"Of course." I tell her. We have no secrets, my mate and I.

She sighs, and I can feel her tension mount. She's going to ask me something she thinks is stupid... or that she is frightened of the answer to...

"You're going to think this is stupid." She begins.

I lift her chin so her eyes meet mine.

"No, I'm not." I assure her.

She searches my face for a long moment.

"I'm going to be 40, soon..." she says.

I smile and nod. It's a wonderful milestone in any woman's life - the midpoint mark on the journey to the wisdom of maturity. For Buffy, whose life expectancy as a Slayer was less than 18 years, it is a particular achievement. One she should be proud to have struggled to. I know I'm proud of my small part in getting her there.

But she doesn't see it that way.

"I'm getting... old." she goes on, "And you're... you're not."

I frown, really not liking where I think she might be going.

"And..." I encourage her. It's better that we get this out in the open.

She fidgets, a little. Her eyes dart everywhere in order to avoid making contact with mine.

"And... well, I just... I know that you can have any woman that you want... someone younger... prettier..."

"Buffy, what are you talking about?" I ask her, truly bewildered.

Her eyes connect with mine once again. "will you still love me when I'm old? When my teeth are falling out and I'm losing my hair? Will you still love me when I can't remember your name anymore? When I can't stand up straight, let alone... you know..."

I have to stifle my laughter. She is being honest, and I don't want to hurt her feelings. But we've been here before, and each time, I tell her the same thing I always tell her.

So I will choose
To be with you,
As if the choice were mine to make.
But you can make decisions, too.
And you can have this heart to break.

"Buffy. I have loved you for almost three decades. It's the only time, in all of my life, that I have truly been alive. Felt love. Even the years when we were apart... The year we were enemies, and then strangers... Through all of that, I have never stopped wanting you."

She's holding her breath. I can hear her heat pounding in her chest. I take the hand I've been holding, and raise it, brushing its warmth to my lips.

"When you die, an old, old woman, in my arms, I will love you. And I will love you until the last sunrise. When everything around me is dead and gone, and I myself am a twisted husk of a thing, I will remember your name. And I will love you."

She softens visibly, and a new kind of tear flows from her eyes.

And so it goes,
And so it goes,
And you're the only one
Who knows...

"That's what I hoped you'd say." She tells me, sniffling.

I laugh and take her back into my arms. The fire is dying and all is well with world once again, as she relaxes against me. In moments, her breathing becomes deep and even, and the way she snuggles deeper into me and sighs happily, I know she is dreaming happy dreams of me.

I hold her there, like that, for hours. And relive each moment we have shared together... each smile, each tear, each caress, each fight...

And you're the only one
Who knows...

The End

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