My eyes are burning. Salt. Sand. Where am I?

In Hell.

Opening my eyes cautiously, I am immediately blinded by harsh sunlight and blink, choking back bile that floods my throat. I remember it all…the plane, the hungry water, the moments before dying…and Angel. Angel holding me. Angel swimming…

Turning, I feel my bones creak and scrape against my skin. Angel lies beside me, asleep. Or dead. I can't tell. Tears spurt clumsily past my eyelids as I touch him. He's hot and sandy, his flesh red. But he's breathing. Thank you, whoever watches over us.

Standing up, I wobble slightly and swallow, my throat working to produce salvia. I'm ravenously thirsty. And all around me is ocean. Isn't that funny… water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink… We're on an island, that I can tell, and it almost makes me laugh as I pad down the beach. Stranded on a tropical island with my ex-lover. What a joke. What a cliché.

Palm trees brush the beach, swollen with coconuts, their fronds green and brilliant against the pink sand. Foliage eats away at the landscape, crawling up to the sea and being covered by the waves. I can see rocky shoals in the distance. Looking up, I stare at the endless blue blue blue. Running my hands through my salty hair, I watch the way the fiery sun moves, it's rays like lava red tentacles dripping and swirling into the robin's egg blue of the sky.

It's not beautiful. It's grotesque in its perfection. I think inanely that I should be in a meeting right now. Doing what Public Relations executives do… bull shitting and smiling and generally oozing slime. Making the customer feeling good about investing with the company. I'm so good at it. So good at lying and pasting on expressions of sincerity. Maybe too good.

My feet sting as I walk down the beach again, trying to actually think rationally. There is a way out of here… I mean, there has to be. Of course there will be rescue planes and boats coming out when they hear of the air crash. We can't have been the only ones that survived. “Angel…” I say softly as I near him, and see that his eyes are open. Blank, staring.

“Hi.”

“What are we going to do?”

He shrugs and sits up, rubbing his leg where there is a long angry red welt. “Don't ask me, Buffy…I'm… I don't even know what to think right now.”

“How long did you swim…to get us here?” I inquire and watch the pattern my toes trace in the sand.

“All night…” he informs me shortly and stands, stretching his back. It looks like it hurts him and I know an urge to soothe his muscles with my fingers. I think I might make it worse so I stand still and gaze out at the sea.

“You don't think… that we were the only ones to survive?”

His head snaps around to glance at me and he looks so beautiful and so weary and worn in that moment that I feel a tug in my belly. The part I didn't know still responded to him. “No…no, we can't have been.”

I nod because I want to believe him. Something occurs to me. “How were you on the plane?”

“I work for a travel magazine. I was going to check out a few hotels…” he scratches the back of his neck and turns to me. “You?”

“Going to meet with some investors for a company I represent. They were getting wary…I was going to reassure them.” I laugh harshly. “Guess that's not in the cards.”

He doesn't answer me.

My eyes flood with tears suddenly and spinning on my heel, I take a few steps away. Why were we lovers? I can't remember. I remember his face at the End of Days fight afterwards though. The way it changed when he was granted his humanity. It became… alive. It throbbed with the basic element of life. He looked beautiful.

I remember the way he looked as we stared at each other. I was numb. My sister was dead. My sister had been destroyed by Glory in her insane attempt to gain access to her world. My sister the key. Energy poured into warm, baby-powder smelling skin. I made sure Glory suffered when I killed her. Made sure she felt it.

I remember the way he looked though. His eyes… they drowned in mine and as he walked towards me, I recall thinking, “I hate you. I really hate you.”

When he kissed me, his lips weren't cool, they were hot and pulsing and for a moment, I went into his arms with all my breath and fire, all my mouth and tongue and skin. It was Angel, and despite all that had happened, all I ever wanted was to be safe and close to him. So close that I was practically inside him. I can remember the way I grappled with his shirt and shoulders, pushing myself against him so hard I thought I might break. Neither of us did, but then, we were never breakable.

“Shh…Buffy,” he had soothed me and it was then I realized that I was crying. He stood with me on the mouth of Hell, his heart pounding and my sister dead, dead, dead…and I pushed him away. My fingers flailed and I panicked. I pushed him. He toppled to the floor and stared up at me.

“I can't be with you…” I whispered, my voice caught in the silence of the High School. “After everything… I can't do this again.”

“It won't be the same,” he countered and I could see the way his eyes begged me.

“It'll always be the same with you,” I told him and took a step backwards, my elbow knocking into a piece of jagged wood. He was always making me do things like that. Be clumsy, stupid Buffy. He was always making me want things I could never have. That Angel. Stupid, stupid me for loving him with my eyes closed and my heart open. It was never going to be different. Too much had happened. I knew that right then. I remember it so clearly. The clarity.

But I was weak even then… because I--

“Buffy,” his voice behind me brings me back to reality. Through the blur of tears, I look at him.

“We have to… find food. Do something. It could be a couple of days before they find us.”

“Oh…” I nod. “Island stuff. Why do I feel like I'm in an episode of Survivor?”

“What?”

He looks genuinely confused and I wave my hand, wiping my dirty fingers across my eyes and creating streaks of sand down my wet cheeks. “Never mind… should we…take a walk around the island first? See if there's any life…or whatever?”

“I already did,” he tells me quietly. “After I slept for a while, I woke up and went for a trek around. There's nothing. No animals or people or any sign that people have lived here…” he pauses and clears his throat. “I'm not even sure it'll be on the map.”

I take this in and look down at my hands. My fingers are far away…so small and tiny. They're incapable. I don't have my Slayer strength anymore. We're like ants waiting to be crushed out here, swallowed up by the force of nature. “We should find fruit…” I say suddenly. “Isn't that what people do?”

He smiles at me. A half smile, that ghost of a grin he always graced me with. “People do that,” he agrees and reaches out for my hand.

I stare at it. His fingers are trembling. So are mine. Breathing carefully, I lace my thumbs and knuckles and joints through his and press our palms together. His is warm, a little rough, a little smooth. Strong. Angel. I hate him, I really do. But I think I hate myself even more.

“So what exactly do you do now?” he asks me as we thread our way through the thick forest. A heavy white blossom tickles my nose and I sneeze.

“Public Relations… I work for a small company, and we represent others. Mostly financial firms, or investments firms. The one I was supposed to work on right now is for a fashion house, though.”

He lifts me up a little to help me across a fallen log and his fingers bite gently into my tiny waist. “It sounds interesting. A lot of smiling right?”

That makes me laugh. “Yes, you could say that.”

“What made you get into it?”

A long black stain on the conversation. The past. “After…” I swallow. “After… what happened to Dawn…I just wanted to get away. So I went to New York and I became a waitress. I went to a couple of classes. Basically worked my way up from intern to exec.”

“Impressive,” he murmurs and begins to gather some berries where they grow lushly on a flowering bush. I move to help him, taking off my sweater and loading the plump fruit into the small sac created from the white material.

“You'll ruin your top,” he says low and I feel my breath catch in my throat as I see he isn't looking at my hands busily gathering berries. His eyes are fixed to where my tank top reveals tanned, smooth skin. His thumb touches a small tear in the neckline.

“We should get back to the beach,” I mutter thickly and rush away from him. It's not fair. For anything to still be there between us. But then, why shouldn't there be? After that last time we saw each other…all the things we did… hot, sticky… his arms, my mouth… Oh God, I promised myself I would forget it. I haven't.

Sometimes I wonder if he remembers as well. Or if he blocks it out. I come to the clearing and my footfalls are clumsy as I tread onto the beach and sink into the sand. I know if I turn I will see Angel coming.

But I don't. I want him to stay behind me. Small, in the distance, so that I can barely make out his face.

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