RATING: Nothing I figure you haven't been exposed to before.

DISTRIBUTION: Go to Mace's Vampyr Library and sign the guestbook. Feel free to take it, but I'd appreciate it if you'd inform me where it's going.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: My first one part anything. I hope you enjoy it. I've gotten a lot of good response, but . . . well, you know how these things are. People take for granted that fanfic writers get feedback. You have to threaten people with physical violence to get any these days.

I always knew I wasn't like other kids my age. I'm a vampire Slayer. I've been a vampire Slayer for about three years now. For a while I was the Chosen *One*. I kinda messed that one up, but I have *some* Slayer-prerogatives. I didn't *know* how really and truly different I was from other kids until Angel was making love to me. Most kids, guys and girls alike, fall in love with someone, and, when or if they break up, it hurts. But, they don't feel like their very souls are being torn apart. Some may even wish they were dead, but the break up just really sent them over the edge. The problem was already dead. Some kids will say they feel like they're dying, but most kids don't have the *faintest* ideas what its like to die. . . . I do. I know. I think it began when I saw him in the mausoleum right after I came to Sunnydale, when he said he didn't have any friends. I was shocked, sure, at that kind of admission. But, I could *feel* his pain and hurt, and now I realize, guilt and shame. Something in the back of my mind wanted to help him . . . to save him. I squashed *those* emotions. I knew that feeling something like that could and would hurt me eventually. I was the Slayer, and I took enough physical pain as it was. Between lying to my mom about the slaying and the divorce, I didn't think I could handle anymore emotional pain. Boy, was I wrong. When Angel told me that his family had been killed by vampires, I wanted nothing more than to collapse onto my bed in a fit of tears. I wanted to cry for him and his family. The way he talked, I figured he hadn't cried for them. Some of it was selfish on my part. I knew that if I did, he would probably gather me up into his arms and rock me. At least, I hoped he would. I scared myself. . . . *Those* emotions were coming back again, and I didn't like feeling kinda helpless and really confused. I didn't know why I cared so much. I shook my feelings back as I dressed and pretended that it was just some schoolgirl crush on an older man. When we kissed . . . when his lips pressed against mine, I felt as if I was finally learning a secret that had been hidden away from me. I felt warm and electric sparks shook me to the core. When Angel pulled away, it was like I only knew a small part of what I was told . . . like a half-formed memory that I could *not* remember. I saw the harsh lines and sharp fangs one his once-angelic face. I screamed because I thought I was going to die where I stood. Not that he would kill me, I thought that I would die of heartbreak. "When you kiss me, I want to die. . . ." I said that to him. I don't reallyknow what made me say something like that. Maybe I should have said that I felt like I was dying. Maybe it would have hurt him so badly *he* died of heartbreak. I didn't *want* to die. I just wanted him to not feel so badly because he couldn't see the sun . . . because I left him alone in the dark. And, I always knew that Angel hated being confined to the darkness. Once, I tried to wave it off by saying that I didn't look that good in direct sunlight. The truth is that I didn't want to leave him. Ever. I can't even really explain it. Whenever I kissed him, I felt like all the pain and sorrow he felt was drawn into me. I wanted . . . I needed to take the shadows away from his beautiful soul. That night, I finally knew how different I was. The rest of the people, they love because they want their love returned. Love goes and comes and changes for most people. I loved Angel forever. When he told me he loved me, I remembered what our first kiss had told me. This was going to be forever. I knew sometimes it would hurt me, and I didn't care because there was nothing I could do about it. No matter who came and who went, no matter what we said or did to each other, no matter who we were with, even if Angel stepped into the sunlight and it didn't burn his flesh, our love would never change from what it was at that first kiss. I know that we were closer, and I know that it looked like we drifted apart, and I know that it seemed as though our relationship seemed to change from that night when we kissed . . . from that day when he said he had no friends. But our love would be eternal, forever. I didn't need to be immortal if what we had was forever. There wasn't any need to be anything besides the one that Angel loved . . . the one that loved Angel. He lost his soul. It tore me apart, and I wanted to die again. I wanted to die because he wasn't there to love me, and I couldn't love the monster that held my one-time lover's body hostage. We can't be together anymore, not like we want to be, not like we should be, not like everything and the wind screams at me. No one fully understands how much it hurts both of us to not be able to end each other's pain. We're completely independent of everyone except each other. My friends think that it hurts less than when I first sent him to Hell. It doesn't. And I love him just as much as I did. I feel like I'm dying, and I *can* say that because I know what it feels like to die. I'm so different because I'm going to love him until it either kills me or sets me free. I'll never stop hurting until he can look at me the way he did when we made love for the first time and I don't have to fear that that *monster* is going to destroy a little more of Angel's life. If I don't live to see the dawn tomorrow of if I live to see a thousand more years, I am always going to love him. And if I don't see the dawn, I honestly think that he wouldn't *have* to kill himself. Angel would either keep himself alive to punish himself for not saving me or die on the spot. We tread lightly around each other and pretend to be semi-comfortable. And there's nothing I want more than to throw him to the floor or the ground and forget that I'm anything except the one person that can make *him* forget a demon that stole his body and over a century of killing and death. If I did, I'd be right back in the same position as before, only my mother, Watcher(s), and friends would hate me. Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't be worth my death for just one more time. But I owe and love Angel more than that. It still scares me that I love Angel that much. It doesn't matter that he's a vampire. It hasn't mattered since before Kendra first appeared. And, it never crossed my mind when we made love. It didn't cross his either. Otherwise, he wouldn't have lost his soul. I pretend that I can say his name without shuddering. I pretend that my friends can say something about him without feeling love flow through me. I pretend that I don't feel more embarrassment and shame that something so breathtakingly beautiful it a conversational topic among my friends from time to time than I have felt in my entire life. I pretend that I won't love Angel forever without any thought of ever giving it up and moving on. Angel knows. My heart speeds up when I'm around him. Even when we were sitting in the library discussing Faith, I could barely stop myself from walking over to him and wrapping my arms around him. He knew. He could hear my pulse. It used to embarrass me. Now, I feel like I share some sort of secret that no one else will ever know. And, I want to smile at that.

THE END