Time
By Breniah

Disclaimer: I don’t own them, Joss & Co do. I am not worth suing either.

Authors Note: Follows up to Graduation Day part 2. This is set in 2015. This is a therapy fic for me. I am still trying to get over the fact that Angel actually left Buffy.

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16 December 2015

Dear Diary,

I watched him go. I don't know how I found the strength to watch him turn and walk off into the mist, into the night. I still can't believe I didn't chase him, try and change his mind one last time. That all seems so unimportant now.

When Giles informed me of his death, I couldn't feel anything other than minor regret and sadness. It had been 12 years since I had seen him anyway. He had so much still to give, so much still to teach. He died in battle, saving an innocent as he would've wanted. Giles made sure that Whistler had collected his ashes, to be brought home to me. Instead of keeping them, I scattered them over our cemetery where we used to fight together. Let my Guardian Angel forever protect our dismal town.

I missed him and I still wished things could've been different. A thousand "What ifs?" passed through my mind the day they told me he'd died. I guess they all expected me to cry, rant and rave, to go out and extract revenge. But I have no tears left where Angel is concerned. I have a hole in my heart, a piece of my soul missing, but no more tears. He wouldn't have wanted me to cry anyway.

I am at the end of my life now anyway. I can feel it. At 34, I have cheated death too many times to escape it now. I'm ok with it though, I got to see the world, I got to do 'stuff', stuff I'd never thought I would have to chance to do. I didn't get married though. I could never have done that, never betrayed him that way.

I will miss the others though, the old Scooby Gang. Our lives are just all to different now and we have drifted. It saddened me at first but I have accepted it, as I have accepted everything that has happened. We all get together once a year, just to hang out and relive our memories but its not the same. Nothing ever is.

I am winging my way across the Atlantic now, heading back for what will be my final visit to Sunnydale. I can feel the afterlife pulling at me gently and already I can remember images and vague memories of my previous lives. It is in these instants of recollection that time stands still for me and yet moves on ever the same. I know I am not making sense but when I recall my soul’s previous incarnations, I realise something that eluded me my entire life. We break time up into manageable pieces, days, months, years, when really it is one long stretch of existence.

I can’t see Angel in any of the flashbacks I have but I know he is there, always my lover, always a part of my life. He is always there, except for those horrible generations when he as a vampire was never reborn. I knew in those lives something was missing, and I never knew what. Time confused me back then too, I guess. It is strange to realise the immortality our souls possess. I don’t think people ever realise what a gift our souls are, at least not in their life. Then again, I don’t think humans have the capacity for that anyway.

I am almost home. I feel happy and at peace as I always do when I come home. I push the recollections and memories from my soul’s journey aside for the moment. There is time enough for that later. For the one thing that time has taught me is that you can never go back. I am anxious to see the gang again. I can wait to take my place in time.

The End