As we lie on the beach, Angel's hand rubs my belly lazily. The waves lap calmly at our feet, tickling my toes and, making crashing sounds up and down the shoreline. Every moment or so I stare at the way the orange fire glows against the black bed of sky.

We made love again, and it was sticky and sweet and slow. He went so slow that by the end I was screaming… writhing. His lips closed over my breasts and his fingers filled me so full. I tasted him, kissing his stomach and his lips, his back and neck and shoulders… and everything else. His heavy weight crushed me into the sand and I welcomed the bruises I knew would be on my body the next day. And when he was inside me I shattered around him, my legs and arms like steel bands. Hold me… I thought as he flooded my insides with heat. I bit his shoulder, my teeth sinking clean into his flesh and I gazed up at the moon through blurry eyes. It's cycloptic eye blinked at me and it filled the sky.

He lies on his stomach now, maybe so he can watch me. I don't know. My thighs tingle from being rubbed back and forth against the sand. He has a smile on his face. Little and content. “You look funny,” I inform him and my thumb brushes his cheek.

“Funny?” he catches my finger with his mouth and presses a kiss to it. Every kiss makes my flesh more addicted. I can feel it happening and it scares me so much that I draw my knees up to my chest, lying on my side. Cold seawater sloshes over my knees.

“Happy or something,” I accuse and then smile, raising my eyebrows. “That's a relatively new concept for you, I hear.” He laughs and creeps closer, his lips touching mine softly just for a moment.

He doesn't really answer me, just lies back again, his face pillowed by his arm. My eyes drift to the stars once more, watching the way they swallow the sky. I feel as if I'm entrapped in a bowl of night and there's no escape.

It used to feel that way after my Mom died. I would be doing all the things that were necessary, running Dawn to school, signing her report cards, checking to make sure the orange juice was fresh…

I used to want to escape. Desperately. I'd lie in bed at night and rock myself into a fitful sleep. Mommy… my mind would scream, whisper, scream. Mommy… come back and take over cause I'm just a kid. I can't do this without you. She didn't come back but I'd dream of her and all would be light and sunny. Maybe The Powers that Be gave me those dreams. I'll never know.

Angel rolls over and draws me on top of him. “What would happen if no one ever found us out here?”

Cocking my head, I let my hair spill over his chest. “And we lived here forever? I think you'd grow a long beard and I'd go absolutely… crazy…” Murmuring the words teasingly, I kiss his mouth.

“Crazy?” he pouts and his hands press into the hollow of my lower back. “I think I would drive you crazy in other ways.”

“Perhaps.” My tone is doubtful, but breathy, so he can tell I'm lying through my white teeth. He laughs and his tongue drags down my neck, tasting the saltiness of my collarbone.

“Do you love me?” he asks quietly and I remember a time when he inquired that question long ago. In the dimness of my kitchen where we were both afraid of the answer.

“You know I do,” I reply so softly, whispering the words as I kiss his shoulder and then his cheeks and forehead and lips. “And maybe if we stayed here forever… it wouldn't matter.”

That's when I hear the helicopter.

Angel's head jerks and he looks up, craning his neck to the night, trying to see in the darkness. Self-conscious suddenly, I pull on my underwear and tank top, kneeling on the wet sand, my face turned up. The sound gets closer and closer to us. A rescue? Angel gazes at me for a quick moment, before sticking a near by branch into the fire and waving it madly.

It appears from out of the nowhere that we've been surrounded with for two days. A hulking 'copter, circling around us warily. “Hey!” I yell inanely, grinning and giggling. Something man-made. Something grey and ugly. Thank God.

I was beginning to think forever might not be that bad. And forever is a long time. Even for Angel and I. Sometimes I forget that.

~~~

As we fly away, I look back. It seems I always do that. Whenever I visit the graves, I look back. Now, here I am, watching as the shelter gets smaller and smaller. I can't really see it except for the light of the moon. It's small now, tiny. A speck of dust in the still night.

Angel holds my hand and he looks faintly scared. So am I. We've been together for only two days and everything has changed. Sometimes I think I can't handle the hold he has on my life. He can disrupt things in a minute if I let him. If I sink into his presence and soak up his kisses. I'm just a sponge, for Angel. He becomes me. I can't get away from him and I don't want to.

We're so far up here. In this helicopter that feels flimsy to my touch. Leaning against his shoulder, I close my eyes and hope that we won't crash again. Or maybe I hope we will. Then we can find another island full of shuuush and forgetfulness and just be lovers who sit under the sky and feel like there's no end to their world. I need that place again and I'm frightened to be leaving it. Terrified. What if what we have is too tenuous to survive? I'm not sure if I can lose him again and come out of it… whole.

Every time we make love, I leave pieces of myself with him. And sometimes I think I'm never going to be able to put it all back together. Be the Buffy I was at sixteen, before Angel, before everything.

~~~

We fly for a couple of hours and finally see dawn breaking. Pink and gold split the sky. “How much longer?” Angel asks the pilot, shouting above the noise of the wind.

“An hour, tops!” he yells back.

Angel settles back in his seat once more and his thumb caresses my palm. I feel him shaking and wonder if he's as afraid of flying now as I am.

Finally, we see land and let out a sigh of relief. The helicopter sets down gently in the heliport, and hastening to get off, I bump into Angel and knock my elbow into his cheek. It makes us both laugh and he kisses me hard on the mouth, swinging me into his arms as we jump off and our feet land on solid concrete.

“It's good to know in the case of a crisis, you'd push me out of the way to save yourself,” he teases me, lifting me up and walking with me in the circle of his arms. My feet touch only air, but I don't wriggle to get away. I'm where I want to be.

“I'd wait to see if you were ok,” I protest and press a kiss to his chin. He arches a brow.

“Are you kidding? I'd probably need to see a doctor after you'd been done getting to safety yourself,” he mocks and then whines, “I think my cheek bone is broken.”

“Liar,” I say softly and let my lips brush against it momentarily. “Good as new.”

“Better than new,” he growls and his lips melt into mine. I feel dizzy and the world spins as we kiss and kiss, not breathing, just tasting. I sometimes used to think that I wished the air tasted like him. I might have made more of an effort to breathe.

The air out here is humid, heavy and it hangs over my skin like a hot, wet, second flesh. Palm trees sway in the early morning light. We enter the offices in the airport and are immediately escorted through all the legalities. All the paperwork.

“How many people survived?” Angel inquires, and the man in charge answers.

“Only thirty died, and there were one hundred on the plane.”

Only thirty. How nice to be lumped into a sum like that. Your life… well it doesn't mean much, cause there were only twenty-nine besides you killed. We're happy with these results. I stare at him for a moment and go to speak my mind when I feel Angel's hand on the bare skin of my knee. His fingers spread over the shiny flesh. It's burned from the days in the hot sun, but his hand feels wonderfully cool.

“How did you know how to find us?” I ask instead.

“Well, we were able to recover all the bodies, except those of the pilots. And you two were the only ones missing. We began an extensive search and rescue. One of our helicopters spotted your fire, and thank God, because you were on quite a remote island. It's not even on the chart.”

“Well thank you very much for finding us,” Angel replies politely and they all smile. I touch the pilot of the chopper's hand, and kiss his cheek.

“Thanks so much.”

“My job,” he answers with a slight American twang. “But your welcome Ma'am.”

“And Mr. Angel,” the man behind the desk, says, “Your wife is here.”

I stare at him blankly, not understanding, cause they must be talking about someone else. Not my Angel. Cause he's mine and he doesn't have a wife. Turning green eyes his way, I see the paleness of his suddenly trembling skin and shake my head. “No.” That's all I say, and my voice is strangely scratchy.

“Buffy…” he reaches out a hand and I flinch as if he has flames for fingertips, lurching away from him, my hungry bones creaking.

“You have a wife…”

It makes me laugh, saying it out loud. A wife. Angel has a wife. Angel's a husband. My oh my, hasn't he been busy? “A wife…” repeating it makes me giggle, and my stomach heaves as I laugh and laugh, staring at the man who is my lover and a stranger all at once. “When did you get married Angel?”

“A year ago…” his tone is agonized and his eyes fix on me, completely ignoring the stares of the men around us. “But listen, Buffy…”

Cutting him off, I whisper, “Don't say anything… cause I couldn't be less interested. Your… wife is waiting for you,” the words feel like ash in my mouth and I feel them crumble and blow away in the wind. Just like me and my newfound happiness and my newfound fucking hope. That just maybe… things were going to go right. Sure, what a joke. What a lousy fucking joke.

As I turn I hear the step he takes toward me and say, my voice ice, “Touch me and I'll kill you.”

There. I sound like the Buffy of old. Or should I say young? My steps get quicker as I run from the offices, across carpeted floors and onto tile and linoleum, but it's all the same because it's taking me farther and farther away from the man I thought I finally had. The man who used to be burned by the sun. Who used to drink blood. Who used to love me and be faithful to me.

When I reach the outside, I turn my face up the sun, which is rising, so slowly, like a ball of fire.

My eyes blur with tears and I sink down onto pavement, it's rough edges scratching my already fragile knees.

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