“He crossed the room and managed to turn on Cordy’s CD player,
silently thanking the designer for making it easy to use. He placed
the fragile disk into the machine and closed the small compartment.
A number “1” showed up on the screen, telling
him that she’d only put one song on it. He pressed play and a few moments later
the music started flooding into the room.”-
IMYT
I'll Meet You There
Title: I’ll Meet You There
Author: crystalix
Rating: PG
Summary: A semi-fluffy ficlet concerning a certain vampire and his slayer.
Pairing: Buffy/Angel (along with a bit of Cordy/Doyle)
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Joss Whedon and co.
Distribution: Please ask first!
Lyrics: “Meet You There” by Simple Plan.
Timeline: Takes place a week after “I Will Remember You” and just after the events
of “Not Fade Away”.
I'll Meet You There
December, 2000
The brooding vampire treaded up the front steps of Angel Investigations.
He’d
gone out on a late night patrol and ran into a pack of unfriendly demons. He
tossed his broadsword into the weapons chest, not bothering to carefully hide
it into his office; away from any prying eyes as he typically would.
As usual, his thoughts were on a certain blonde slayer. Thanksgiving was a week
ago and still the memories of the forgotten day were fresh in his mind. He kept
wondering what she was doing, what would have happened if he had remained human.
He replayed the day over and over in his mind, considering what he could have
done to give them more time. Maybe he hadn’t made the right choice; maybe he
should have talked to her about it first. This along with the recent loss of
his friend had taken it’s toll on him, he almost constantly walked around in
a daze.
Entranced, he walked towards the elevator to go down to his apartment; hoping
to get some sleep that he’d been deprived of the last few nights.
“Hello, earth to Angel? Anybody home in that broody head of yours?”
Angel jumped, his mind breaking out of its ravine. He turned back to look at
Cordelia who was holding up a medium sized box.
“Mail for you boss. Some demon dropped it off for a friend of his, said his name
was Clom or Clem or something. Nice guy but in serious need of a face lift, actually
we were talking and-”
“Cordelia, this guy… did he say who the package was from?”
The brunette shrugged. “Nope, but he mentioned that he lived a couple hours from
here, who knows maybe it was from one of your many friends of Sunnydale. Since
we both know how popular you were there.”
Ignoring her sarcasm, Angel took the box looking over it slowly. He was surprised
that Cordelia hadn’t torn it open as she did with any other mail that came in,
he guessed he wasn’t the only one feeling off since Doyle had died.
Angel froze as he studied the package more closely. Familiar loopy letters were
written in the corner, saying ‘To Angel’. The scent of the demon, Clem, was all
over it but beneath that was the scent he’d never forget, the scent that had
plagued his memories for the past week. He mumbled a quick “thanks” to Cordelia
before going down to his apartment.
He set the package down on his kitchen table and stared at it. For a minute he
considered throwing it away in fear of what may be inside, but he knew even if
he could; he would regret it. Reluctantly, he pulled the tape off the parcel
and opened the box. The first thing he noticed was a plain, white card lying
on top of colourful tissue paper. He slowly opened it, revealing a single word; “Always”.
He couldn’t help but smile, that one word coming from her made his heart swell
in happiness. He almost laughed when he realized her name was nowhere to be seen,
and she had always accused him of being cryptic.
He set the note aside and dug through the massive amounts of tissue paper before
finally pulling out a CD case. He looked over it, expecting this to be some kind
of joke. It wasn’t any secret that he wasn’t into any kind of new technologies,
he purposely made an attempt to avoid them at all times. In fact if it hadn’t
been for him ‘temporarily confiscating’ Cordy’s CD Player (along with her new
rock and roll CDs) he wouldn’t have one down here at all. He opened the case
and sure enough, inside was a single CD. No labels on it, though the vampire
did note that the CD itself was bright pink (ridding his mind of any doubts that
it hadn’t been Buffy who sent it).
He crossed the room and managed to turn on Cordy’s CD player, silently thanking
the designer for making it easy to use. He placed the fragile disk into the machine
and closed the small compartment. A number “1” showed up on the screen, telling
him that she’d only put one song on it. He pressed play and a few moments later
the music started flooding into the room.
Now you're gone,
I wonder why
You left me here,
I think about it on, and on,
and on, and on, and on, again.
I know you're never coming back,
I hope that you can hear me,
I'm waiting to hear from you.
Until i do,
You're gone away,
I'm left alone,
A part of me is gone,
And I'm not moving on,
So wait for me,
I know the day will come.
I'll meet you there,
No matter where life takes me to,
I'll meet you there,
And even if I need you here,
I'll meet you there.
I wish I could have told you,
The things I kept inside,
But now I guess its just too late.
So many things remind me of you,
I hope that you can hear me,
I miss you,
This is goodbye,
One last time.
You're gone away,
I'm left alone,
A part of me is gone,
And I'm not moving on,
So wait for me,
I know the day will come.
I'll meet you there,
No matter where life takes me to,
I'll meet you there,
And even if I need you here,
I'll meet you there,
No matter where life takes me to,
I'll meet you there,
And even if I need you here,
I'll meet you there.
I'll meet you there....
And where I go you'll be there with me,
Forever you'll be right here with me.
I'll meet you there,
No matter where life takes me to,
I'll meet you there,
And even if I need you here,
I'll meet you there,
No matter where life takes me.
I'll meet you there,
And even if I need you.
I'll meet you there
I'll meet you there
I'll meet you there
The song ended and the words were replaced with silence. For the first time since
the forgotten day, Angel cried. For Buffy, for the time they’d shared, for his
love for her and the pain of once again being torn apart. But most of all, he
cried for the small shred of hope she’d given him. The hope that one day, no
matter what happened, they would be together again.
May, 2004
Angel’s sword crashed to the ground as the last demon turned to dust. It had
been a long fight; they almost lost only a few minutes in. Then some unplanned
cavalry showed up. Hundred of slayers poured off roofs everywhere, witches levitating
Gunn to safety and wiping out huge amounts of demons. Among the new arrivals,
Angel saw Willow, Giles, and Faith. In the end, the four friends who had started
the battle had all survived. Illyria had disappeared as soon as the last demon
was slayed, as did the few members of the Scooby Gang. Angel stood in the middle
of the battlefield shocked. He hadn’t expected to survive the fight, never mind
win.
Suddenly, a blinding white light surged through Angel, the vampire fell to his
knees in pain, expecting his un-life to end. Then it stopped, the pain and the
light vanished, leaving the warrior gasping for breath. At the thought, Angel
stopped and listened to the rhythmic beats his heart was emitting.
“I’m alive.” He said, more to himself than anyone else.
“Oh bloody hell!” With that, Spike stormed off to find Illyria.
Gunn came over and congratulated Angel before slowly heading to the hospital,
leaving Angel alone, listening to his heart beat in disbelief.
“Angel O’Connor?” said an unfamiliar voice.
Angel lifted his head to look at the stranger, a teenager with curly red hair
stood before him.
“Me name’s Mary, I’d be one of the slayers. My commander left a bit ago, she
asked me to kindly deliver this to you.”
The girl brought out her hand, holding a small white card. Slowly Angel took
it and before he had a chance to reply, the redhead turned and left, issuing
orders to the remaining slayers. Angel carefully opened the card, in familiar
script was the address for the Hyperion Hotel. Beside it was written “I’ll meet
you there”. Without a second thought, Angel got up and despite his less-than-minor
injuries quickly headed towards the place he used to call home.
The newly-human Angel treaded up the front steps to Angel Investigations. He
opened the front doors and standing there in the middle of the room, was a blonde-haired
woman with a smile planted on her face. She ran towards him and he put his arms
around her, pulling her closely. Tears stained their faces, they laughed, both
forgetting about their injuries. For the first time in years they were both truly
happy, and all the pain and separation finally seemed worth it. Angel thanked
the Powers that Be for giving them this chance and this time, he wasn’t going
to waste it.
Meanwhile, in a faraway dimension an Irishman and his brown-haired girlfriend
looked down on the two, smiling at their friend.
The brunette sighed, “It’s about time, I mean they’ve had the whole angst-fest
going on for like a zillion years now! Maybe now Angel might let himself be happy
for once.”
“Ah come on Princess, they deserve it. I mean they’ve both given up so much,
we all owe it to ‘em.”
“Oh no, we don’t owe them anything. We gave them our pre-wedding present, see?
Angel, human! They get their happily-ever-after. If THAT doesn’t make them happy
nothing will. Besides we died remember? And we’re still stuck working for the
Powers! If anything they owe us.”
Doyle laughed at his girlfriend, turning away from the embracing warriors.
“Come on Cordy, lets get out of here before they decide to put the lack of curse
to work. I hear we’re needed in New York, if we get there early enough we might
be able to squeeze in some extra shopping.”
Cordelia let out a small screech of joy before heading off, with one last glance
at the couple (who had just broken the table in the lobby), he followed smiling.
Some things never changed.
The End
