Years Later

By KNS

strickland@frontier.net
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Joss Whedon and the WB - I'm just borrowing them. Please for the love of god don't sue me ( I don't have any money anyway.)

It began as a normal night. The air was cool, crisp, and the soft wind carried with it the sweet small of rain. The hour was late; few travelers remained in the streets, and what passed from shadow to shadow was seldom human.

Angel knew that for a fact. Having tracked a band of undead for two weeks, he had finally stumbled upon them in the lower part of town, blending in among the winos and homeless of the city. He tried to slip away unseen, but one of them noticed him lurking about in the shadows, and together the five attacked him.

He fought with strength born of a will to survive - but he was outnumbered badly, and he knew he'd be lucky if he lived through the night. Still he fought on, refusing to surrender.

Suddenly there was another person fighting the vampires, a woman. She worked silently and with deadly skill, staking first one, then two other vamps, while Angel disposed of two himself. But then the woman turned her attention to him, moving so quickly that he barely had a moment to call out before she drove the stake into his heart.

"Buffy!"

The woman froze instantly - and so did Angel, hardly believing what he'd said. It wasn't what he'd meant to say, not by a long shot. But as the woman slowly reached up and threw back the hood of her black jacket, he realized that his heart had spoken before his mind could protest.

"Angel?" the woman said incredulously.

****

She had changed.

Angel silently admitted that to himself as they settled into a booth at an all-night diner. Her hair was bound up in a braid that fell past her shoulders; it was still blond, but streaked with silver at the temples. There were tiny lines at the corner of her eyes. Her lips still looked the same.

"That bad, huh?" she said, arching an eyebrow.

Angel quickly shook his head. "No, that's not what I was thinking. It's just - you've changed."

She tilted her head. "Twenty years will do that for you. Well, not for you," she added. "You look exactly the same." There was some quality in her voice he couldn't quite define, something close to jealousy or pain.

"Whata ya have?" the waitress asked, appearing at the table. She smiled at Angel.

"Hot tea," Buffy answered. Seeing Angel's look, she said, "Picked up the habit from Giles. And you - you won't want coffee. It makes you jittery. I remember." She abruptly turned her eyes to the window.

"Two teas," he told the waitress. She rolled her eyes and walked off, snapping her pad shut.

An awkward silence lay between the two of them, a silence twenty years wide.

Angel wanted to say so much, to ask so many questions. They all ran around in his head like frightened cats; when he tried to grab one, it scattered like the wind that was beginning to blow outside.

"How is Giles?" he asked finally.

Buffy smiled. "Doing quite well, actually. He keeps up with the latest demon books, creature of the night magazines, you know. Same old Giles."

Which told him nothing, and she knew it. He merely nodded. "And Willow and Xander?"

"They're in England. Married, you know - they have two boys and a girl. Willow's studying to be a Watcher, can you believe it? And Xander - you won't believe what he's doing." She laughed.

The sound tore at his heart. It brought all the memories flooding back in a great rush. He closed his eyes against them.

"Willow, a Watcher? And married to Xander." He repeated her words, trying to make some sense of them, trying to concentrate on anything but the curve of her face, the graceful way she moved her hands.

The waitress put two mugs of hot water on the table along with a bowl of tea bags. "Holler if ya need anythin' else," she mumbled, walked away before either answered.

Angel watched her hands as they deftly opened the paper and slipped the bag into the steaming water. Her hands were different too - the nails were clipped short, unpainted; there were scars and callouses where none had been before. And still he thought they were beautiful.

"Three kids? They've been busy."

Again she laughed. "And they gave the poor brats the most awful names- Oz, Angel, and Buffy. Who would name their kids such terrible names? Ugh. Better to call them Larry, Mo, and Curly."

There was some bitterness in her voice, a little sarcasm, a lot of pain, but she said it all with a dazzling smile and a careless manner.

"Whatever happened to Oz? And Cordelia - do you know?"

"Will and Oz were together for a long time. He died about twelve years ago from a heart attack," she answered, reaching for the sugar. She poured a good helping into the tea. "Apparently his family had heart conditions on both sided. Will was terribly upset when he died. We all were." She casually stirred her tea.

"As for Cordelia - she was murdered while walking home one morning fourteen - no, fifteen years back. The man who killed her was a drug addict looking for money. She was an easy mark - although she did die fighting, or so I heard." Cautiously she sipped her tea.

"Dead," he echoed. He looked hard at the woman across from him. She wasn't nearly as calm as she pretended to be. Her eyes were shifting rapidly from one object to another, but never to him. Her hands were constantly busy with some slight task or other. Whatever emotions she felt, she was clearly trying to keep them to herself. A sure sign that she wanted him to keep his distance.

He knew he should go, but he couldn't - not yet, not so soon.

"Did you ever make it through college?" he asked, trying to change the subject.

She nodded. "All the way. Earned a doctorate in psychology, actually. Took me a while, but I finally got it."

He sat back in surprise. "A doctorate. Your mother must be proud."

She splashed tea onto her hand, cursed the hot liquid that burned her.

"You've burned yourself," he said, realizing he had struck a nerve. Quickly he pulled out napkins, reached out for her hand to dry it.

She snatched the napkins from him, never touching his skin. "It's okay," she said quickly. "It's not your fault. I'm still a little touchy about Mom. I'm sure she would have exploded with delight, but she died before I finished the degree. Quirk of fate. Her and Dad both, interestingly enough. They were back together for a while. Both died in a head-on collision with a drunk driver."

He watched her begin to stir the tea again. "I'm sorry," he said, sorrow thickening his throat. She was so young, so young to have faced so much sadness. But then, she wasn't all that young - not by human standards.

"You're thirty-eight now. No, thirty-nine - you just had a birthday."

"Didn't you ever learn that to speak of a woman's age is rude?" she teased. "But yes, you're right. I actually hold two records - the longest living Slayer, and the person who has filled the role of Slayer for the most years." She laughed. "The Council hates me, I swear they do. They're taking bets on how much longer I'll live. I even heard a rumor that I should be assassinated so that the next Slayer can come along."

Angel looked at her. "That's not funny."

"Sure it is," she returned. "The Council doesn't like to have to deal with me. Oh, they've got their other Slayer off somewhere doing their bidding - maybe even in Sunnydale - some poor little girl scarred out of her mind and trying desperately to survive. But I'm not a little girl; none of ‘em can push me around anymore. Certainly not that little toad who's in command. Guess who that is."

"The head of the Council? I have no idea," Angel answered. "We don't really keep in touch."

She let out a sharp bark of laughter. "I bet you don't. But you know this worm. Oh, come on, guess."

Her voice, some look on her face - something suddenly reminded him of the girl he had once known, the one he had danced with at the Bronze, the one he had fought beside hundreds of times, the one he had loved.

Still loved.

He shook his head.

"Wesley Windon-Price," she answered.

"You're kidding."

She laughed at the expression on his face. "No."

They laughed together for a moment, gradually fell silent. For the first time she let him catch her gaze and hold it. He saw the questions in her eyes, and the memories, and the emptiness of twenty years that she was trying to bridge. After a moment he turned his eyes away.

She cleared her throat, sipped again from the tea. "So enough of me. Where have you been these past years?"

He thought of telling her, ‘Looking for you' - but only for an instant. Instead he calmly said, "Here and there. I really hadn't realized so much time had passed."

He regretted the lie the moment it was said. She flinched just a little around the eyes - the only sign that his words had hurt. She returned quickly, "Neither did I. I've stayed busy - killing evil things mostly. It's not much, but it's a living."

He knew, knew he shouldn't ask, but he did it anyway. "Have you ever married?"

Carefully she set down her mug. "No. Never stayed around long enough to - not after the war, anyway. I was drafted, you know - back in the days when the government thought they were going to loose and so they sucked into the military anyone who could hold a gun. Oh, I was an officer," she added, seeing the look of shock on his face. "I had too much education to be a grunt. They shipped me over there, put a hundred people under my command, and I didn't know jack what to do. Half of them died before I figured it out."

Suddenly she lost her bantering tone. "I'd never killed a human before, not deliberately. I-I don't know how Faith lived with it. It ate me up inside. When I came back, I was a wreck. I drank - a lot. I spent the night with strangers. I-I did a lot of things I shouldn't have done. Giles finally caught up with me, helped me figure things out. I wouldn't be here without him."

She cleared her throat. "But no, I've never married. Fell in love once, if that counts for anything. He was a quiet man, filled with secrets, but he loved me - I think. He left me all too soon, saying it was best for me if he went. . . He broke my heart." She looked at him, pain in her eyes. "I was very young."

He knew what she was saying, knew there was no help for it.

"Well," he said quietly. "I'd better go. It'll be getting light soon."

A sad smile played about the corners of her lips. "Yes," she answered, and slowly stood up.

Outside in the night it was raining. Light from the street lamps cast an eerie glow in the misting rain, and the light coming through the windows of the little dinner made it seem warm and inviting.

Angel and Buffy stood just outside the entrance, the light at their backs, the rain before them, looking like the first two people cast out of Eden. They regarded each other for a moment. Then Buffy stretched out her hand.

"Friends?"

Angel took it, shook hands with her solemnly. "Friends."

She smiled and turned away, walked into the darkness and the rain.

He could not watch her go.

Three strides and he reached her, caught her by the upper arm and spun her to face him, and kissed her. In that gesture he put twenty years' worth of fear and worry and longing and pain, and for a moment she responded.

And then she pulled away.

"I wish you hadn't done that," she said, her voice low. "You always make it hard to walk away." She paused, suddenly looked up at him. "I wasn't going to do this, but I have to ask - Did you ever really love me? Even a little?"

He laid a hand on her cheek. "More than I ever realized until you were gone. I was a fool - I am a fool. I regret - so much. Stay with me - let me stay with you. Let's cross this world from one side to the other and back again. We - I've wasted so many years. I don't want to waste anymore. Please, please don't go - don't ever go again."

She caught his hand, held it in hers. "I know this is selfish, but - all my life I've helped others, done what others wanted. I spent years and years in college to be a psychologist so that I could help people like Faith. I spent thousands of nights killing evil creatures so that they wouldn't hurt others. And I spent twenty years away from you because everyone - even you - said that it was for the best."

She stopped, laughed without amusement. "Now Giles lives in this city with his wife, and sometimes I come to visit them. And Willow and Xander - they live in London with their three kids, and sometimes I go to visit them. But most of the time, I just wander around - city to city, state to state, country to country. I'm nearly always alone. I want to be selfish now. I want us to be together for whatever time we have left - maybe ten minutes, maybe ten years. I know it'll be hard, but nothing could be harder than this loneliness. I want to die with your name on my lips, and I want you to bury me -" Her voice broke, her face crumpled.

He held her close. "I'll never leave you again, I swear. I was such a fool. I looked for you, I swear I did. But I could never find you. . ."

"Do you know how many times I reached for you in my sleep, or how many times I called your name into the shadows. . ." she whispered.

"Never again," he whispered back, and when he kissed her this time there was no sadness in it, no pain or fear or regret of parting, only hope - and love.

Eventually they drew apart. They heard applause. Looking into the dinner, they saw a handful of people waving, clapping, gesturing at them and smiling. Eden's angels were happy for the outcasts.

Angel and Buffy looked at each other, laughed, waved back at the observers. Then she took his hand.

"Let's go see Giles."

"And then we'll go to England," Angel laughed, kissing her hand.

She laughed. "Oh yeah? First one to the corner gets the window seat."

She took off running, but not so fast that he couldn't catch her.

Which he did.

And above them it ceased to rain.