Angel walked into his apartment and dropped his keys on the table near the door, before standing up and looking around. He almost staggered as an avalanche of memories hit him, both of the time before the curse was broken and of the brief-but no less damaging for all that-time when he had been Angelus once again.

God, it had been awful. Trapped in his own mind, watching, helpless, as Angelus hunted humans for their blood, as he allied himself with Drusilla and Spike again.

As he used Angel's memories to betray and hurt the ones Angel had reluctantly come to care for. Willow, Giles, and Xander. The night of Buffy's birthday he'd even started to become fond of Cordelia 'Teen Queen of the Mean' Chase.

As he did and said to Buffy all the things that made her go pale, then cry when she was alone later. The things that made her look like she had bruises behind her eyes.

As he had murdered Jenny Calendar, the woman who had saved Angel even from beyond the grave.

Of all the things Angel had to feel guilty about, that was what he felt guilty about the most. That as he felt the frenzy of intent growing, that during the breathless pursuit of Jenny, he hadn't once tried to stop Angelus.

Because Angel knew that he only had one shot at trying to stop Angelus from killing and he had to save it for Buffy, though she hadn't needed it in the end.

Angel didn't know if he would ever be able to tell Giles that.

Angel started to tremble as he walked unsteadily across the room, collapsing onto the bed. Someone-it must have been Buffy-had remade it neatly. He stretched out and waited for the shakes to stop, until he realized that he was lying on top of the covers in the same position that he had last lain under them, with Buffy beside him. He let go of his shaky self-control then, and the tears started to pour down his face.

During the time he'd spent trapped inside Angelus' mind he hadn't been able to cry, even though he'd wanted to. Wanted to every time he saw Buffy, every time Angelus killed.

Without meaning to, Angel stretched an arm out beside him, but Buffy's place was empty.

Angel rolled over into the spot where Buffy had lain and started to cry, in the way he hadn't cried since he was a small child. Great gulping sobs that made his stomach hurt and his chest burn, even though he didn't breathe anymore.

Because Buffy wasn't with him, and he was deathly afraid that she never would be again.

Buffy slowly walked into her house and up the stairs to her room as the dawn broke.

She pulled her keepsake trunk out of the closet and pulled out the false bottom. Together with all her emergency Slaying equipment, lay a small hardcover notebook; the kind sold in stationery stores.

On the cover was a photo of the full moon in the middle of an eclipse. She had bought it to give to Willow-astronomy was one of her hobbies-but then Angelus had come, and Buffy had put aside her old diary to write in this.

To Angel.

Through the first days after Angel's soul had been taken from her, Buffy had found comfort in these pages. Her entries in this diary had taken the form of a never-ending letter to him. She had filled it with random thoughts and feelings, with things and pictures that she wanted to share with him, or she thought he might find interesting. In between the heartfelt words often stained with tears, Buffy had added a few photos of the Slayerettes, a flyer for Oz's band, a flower she'd found and pressed, even a picture torn from a catalog about an upcoming show at her mother's gallery.

The morning she had stood with Giles at Jenny's grave, she had come home afterward and written to Angel. She had written about her grief, her guilt-so much guilt-and the strange way she had been strengthened by her declaration to Giles. Her apologies for what she was going to do to the body he had once inhabited, her apologies for no longer being able to believe that he could come back to her.

How much she still loved him. How she would love him until she joined Jenny in death, and after.

She had thought that that would be her last entry, but now she took up her pen again, and started to write.

Angel cried until he had no more tears, then shakily eased himself off the bed. He knew he had to leave Sunnydale, so that Buffy, Giles, and the Slayerettes could start to heal the wounds Angelus had inflicted. His presence would only keep the hurt alive, especially for Giles.

All of a sudden he knew where he had to go.

To the place that Angel still thought of as his mortal home, even after two hundred and twenty years.

To Ailithair Chase.

Buffy looked at the clock absently, then looked again, shocked. She'd been writing for four hours, and when she put down the pen she felt the muscles in her hand cramp. She just hoped that her writing was still legible, because she had to get this to Angel today.

Buffy knew the man she loved very well; right now, Angel would be drowning so deep in guilt (a condition she fully shared) that he would be planning when, not if, he would be leaving Sunnydale.

She wanted him, wherever he went, to have this record of how much she had missed him, how much she still loved him, how she forgave him-even though she couldn't quite forget yet. So she had to give this to Angel today, before he left.

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