The night air was wet and heavy on his face as Angel opened his eyes and faced the house on Revello Drive with trepidation. He saw it, but he didn't believe it. He didn't recognise this place after so many years of grey and blood and sunshine hair. He didn't know anything anymore. Not of this place. Not of her. What Buffy would be waiting for him up there?

Touching the knotty wood of the Oak tree, he tested its familiar weight, and began to climb. He could almost see his ghost from so long ago on the branches with him; and squeezed his eyes shut as the pain clamped down on his ribs and crushed. His past self didn't know what was coming- Faith, Angelus, razor sharp swords and lost souls and the City of Angels. Battlefields, and sweat soaked nights of whispers and kisses and Buffy.

As he came upon her window, the transparent white drapes fluttering in the breeze, he thought of his wife and screamed silently to her…Help me, love. I can't do this alone.

"Angel?"

It was a sound of startled surprise. He glanced up and saw the girl. Her hair was bright, , thick- her eyes wide. She was beautiful. But she would become even more beautiful and didn't know it. "Hey," he murmured and tried to place the time. Wesley's orb hadn't let them be too specific of the period in which he went back in her lifetime.

She just stared at him and then rocked back on her heels a little. "What are you doing here?" her voice was laced with a sickening suspicion. He felt his guts clench and his throat swell. He wanted so badly to fall to his knees and kiss her belly, beg her to love him the way her future self did. Turning, he paced a little and ran a hand down her shelves, disrupting a thick layer of dust which made him smile in remembrance.

("I am not cleaning.

Buffy…

No, Angel. C'mon… it's already a big dirty battlefield already. There's no need for excessive cleanliness. I make our cot. Isn't that enough?

Fine, I'll do it.

Oh fine, baby. If you're going to be that way. Show me the mop and the bucket.)

She looked at him strangely. "What are you doing here?" Panic sharpened her tone. "Did something happen? Is Cordy ok?"

"Yes," he finally managed to speak clearly, and glanced at her again. She looked so young. There was no stain to her eyes that years of war can bring… and did. "They're fine. Buffy…" Saying her name sent a wave of hellish pain down to his belly. Stopping for a moment, he leaned against the wall and motioned to the door. "Is your Mom ok?"

"Yes…" she sent him a weird look. "Why wouldn't she be?"

Oh, love. If you only knew. He wanted to tell her, to warn her… but he couldn't. "Where's Dawn?" he asked.

"Dawn?" she repeated. "Who in the hell is Dawn? Angel… you're scaring me."

A Buffy that didn't know Dawn. He had lived with the little girl for so long and lived with a wife whose burning love for her sister drove everything she did. Not knowing how to respond, he shrugged.

"It doesn't matter now. Buffy… I'm not… I'm not the Angel from LA." Oh, great. Great way to explain it to her, he chastised himself soundly, and could almost hear his wife… (Stop being cryptic guy. Just spit it out already.)

She laughed and crossed her arms. "Not the Angel from LA. Well, this is a new one. Who are you then?"

"I'm from… the future."

Buffy shook her blonde head and answered blankly, "The future. What…" she opened her mouth a few more times, but no sound emanated from it. "What… I don't understand. Time travel isn't even possible. I mean… is it?"

He nodded. "Wesley and I found an orb a while ago. Well, actually, you found it." He smiled slightly, lost in the future that was already past, his eyes far far away. "You were out on one of the recs with Gunn and in a demon stronghold you found the orb that—"

"Wait a second," Buffy held up her hands and he snapped back into the present with jarring force. "I found it? I don't understand… I'm *with* you, in this future?"

He nodded, and attempted to block out the voice in his head. The voice of his wife, his girl, his life. His everything. He couldn't think. Trailing his fingers down the windowsill, he faced her again and wished more than anything for her. For the other her. The one that looked at him with softness in her eyes. The one that called him "baby", the one that lounged on their quilt in the very early hours of the morning and beckoned him from where he was making coffee, into her arms. His Buffy. Not this stranger.

"Why am I with you?" she inquired sharply, and he swallowed helplessly.

"We got married." He didn't want to explain this to her. Not the way she had looked in the church, in the simple white silk. Not the sheen of her skin afterwards. Not the moonlight dance on the balcony that night when she'd stumbled and hit her elbow against a table they hadn't noticed. Not the sound of her giggles as he had patched up the small wound, kissing it better at her insistence. Not the way her hands gripped his back as they kissed between silken sheets.

His eyes stung with tears as he watched her grapple with the news.

"When did we get back together?" she asked him softly, and his head jerked up at the new note to her voice. She sounded more like her. More like his Buffy.

"It was a few years—" he was about to say a few years after her mother died, but choked on the words. He couldn't inform her of that. He didn't want to be the one to tell her she would find her Mommy lying glassy eyed on the couch as he was screwing Darla in another city. "It was at Xander's wedding."

"Xander's wedding?" she spluttered, and raised her eyebrows. "Please don't tell me he marries Anya. Let it be Willow, or Cordy… or even Giles, for crying out loud."

Angel smiled gently at her. "No, it was Anya. They were very happy," he assured her. "And Cordy got invited so she dragged me and Gunn and Wesley along. You and I…" he closed his eyes as the rush of sweet memories glowed behind his eyelids. "You and I started to talk again. And slowly… we got back what we had lost. We realized we still loved each other." He looked at her and could see the faint flush underneath her skin. "We got married on your twentieth fourth birthday. I told you… I told you I wanted to give you a happy birthday. To erase the memory of all the bad ones."

She stared at him with tears glittering in her hazel orbs and held out her hand to touch his. "Well I hope future me said thank you."

"You did," he told her huskily. "You thanked me by marrying me. That's all I ever needed."

The tears spilled over her cheeks but she didn't acknowledge them. "Why are you here, Angel?"

"Something bad happened." He let that sink in, and began to pace. "The Hellmouth was opened and demons took over. We were living in LA at the time, and you couldn't get to the school in time to stop it. Earth became a war zone. Demons against humans. We've got the upper hand though, now, and it looks like we're going to win. But…" he paused and bit his lip until he tasted blood. He couldn't tell her. "We lost a lot of people. Willow, Xander, Tara…" he let that ram home and saw her pale, her hands start to shake. "I need to warn you. I need to make sure you don't let any of this happen. Be at Sunnydale High on December 1st 2005. That's the day the Hellmouth opened. Stop it, and none of it will happen…"

She nodded dumbly, and reached out to him. "What about us? Now that I know…"

"Nothing's changed. You just have the knowledge that there is…" he felt his belly tighten with sorrow, "there is a happy future waiting for you, Buffy."

"Riley…" she whispered, and he knew then that Solider boy hadn't left her yet. "I don't… not that I think what we have is forever… but??"

"He's… he's not worthy of you," was all Angel said. He didn't want to tell her about the way she'd find him with a vampire feeding off his arm, or the subsequent helicopter ride to the vast jungles where he'd disappear and never contact her again. "Never mind that. Just remember the Hellmouth. Be prepared, love. Just be prepared for that."

Looking at her one last time, memorising the curve of her young cheek, the fresh whiteness of her teeth, the shine of her hair, he spun to go, to leave the same way he had come.

"Wait," she grabbed his arm. "Where are you going? Back… back to where you came from?

"No…" he said blankly, tiredly. "There's no… there's nowhere. I made a new future." He was glad. His wife no longer lay in that blood stained cot anymore. "I have to go though. I'll see you," he caressed her face for a moment.

She leaned into him and he felt the press of her lips against his neck. "Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you in advance for making me happy."

Sobs threatened to overwhelm him for a moment. Oh, love. My beautiful, beautiful love…

Kissing her forehead, he murmured, "It was you that made me happy. It was you that always drove my life, my fights, my existence. Never forget that, Buffy Summers. I loved you."

Without looking back, he climbed out the window and was on the street. As he walked, he heard her voice in his ears, heard the music of her laughter in every bird song. Ascending the hill above the Mansion, he turned his face to the sky and saw her eyes in the vibrant dawn sweeping the horizon.

"Buffy…" he whispered, as he felt the sun. "Love, I was true… true to you…"

There was fire, there was pain, and then there was peace. As his ashes drifted into the wind, his last words echoed in the still morning air.

"I'm coming home."

end.