"Before he could finish his sentence, an unexpected visitor
forced him to freeze. His friends piling in the door behind him, Wesley and Cordelia’s
brows furrowed at the familiar redhead seated at the couch. Her head down, she
slowly looked up at the sound of Angel’s merry voice. " -
The End
The End
Title: The End
Author: crystalix
Rating: PG
Summary: Sometimes the truth is so devastating that no one can put it to words.
Part 1/1.
Pairing: Buffy/Angel
Timeline: Takes place at the end of the ATS season 2 episode “There’s No Place
Like Plrtz Glrb”
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Joss Whedon and co.
Distribution: Please ask first!
The
End
“Yo, that portal jumping is
a fun ride. We sell it to a theme park we could get paid!” Gunn
said enthusiastically, trudging up the front steps of Angel Investigations.
Angel couldn’t
help but smile,
“Okay. Can I say it? I wanna
say it…”
“Say what?”
Angel laughed, cutting through
his friends and up the remaining steps. It had been a long few
days, the whole experience of Lorne’s homeworld was so outrageous
that no one could stifle a laugh. Angel felt a rush of energy,
happiness overwhelming him at the sight of his home. It’s funny,
how after so many decades of being alone and with no real place
to live, he had grown unmistakably attached to the quaint establishment.
He hadn’t realised just how much…
“There’s no place like….” He
announced with a smile, spreading open the double doors before
him.
Before he could
finish his sentence, an unexpected visitor forced him to freeze.
His friends piling in the door behind him, Wesley and Cordelia’s
brows furrowed at the familiar redhead seated at the couch. Her
head down, she slowly looked up at the sound of Angel’s merry voice.
Inwardly her heart fell, it was bad enough what she had to tell
him, but Angel was actually happy—a rare occurrence over the past
few years. Of all the times to show up…
Almost painfully,
her eyes met his. Flushed pale, her eyes swollen and glossy, Willow found
herself truly speechless. Her mouth shut tight, her throat feeling
as though someone was chocking her, the witch was almost afraid
to open her lips, as though saying those three horrific words would
make Buffy’s death that much more real.
At home it was
hard, more than hard in fact. The scoobies had scarcely said a
word since the day Buffy had died; the funeral was probably one
of the hardest things any of them had ever endured. A few days
ago Giles had managed the courage to suggest the Buffybot as the
new resident slayer, but the thought had fallen on deaf ears… no
one wanted to admit she was really dead, to move on.
But none of the
pain back home compared to how Willow was
feeling right now. Telling Angel had been the last thing anyone
had wanted to do; more out of guilt than anything. What they were
feeling right now was scarcely anything they could put to words,
but Angel… he had known a piece of Buffy that none of them had
ever touched, held it within his hands for longer than either would
admit. Telling him that all that had been torn from them by the
Slayer herself, Willow would
have rather thrust him into the daylight than make him live through
that.
“ Willow ?” Questioned
Angel, his joyful high having faded upon his arrival. He found
himself rooted to the spot as worry flooded his mind.
Willow stood
up, her eyes never breaking his. Tears overcoming her once again,
she knew that words were not needed. The look in Angel’s eyes told
her anything she needed to know.
Her silence spoke
volumes.
It was then that Angel felt
it. Like raging bolts of lightning crashing into his defenceless
corpse, the realisation hit him hard. Upon his initial demeanour
he hadn’t even noticed it, his happiness clouding the sense that
he usually clung to so dearly. The fiery, vivid connection that
he and Buffy had shared for two years now had frozen in time. While
in the other world it had been suppressed but now, back home the
comprehension of its absence fell upon him. It felt as though someone
had rooted a sword deep into his chest, the blade twisting deeper
and deeper with every second that drew by. His mouth fell open
as his mind was thrown into denial; this couldn’t have happened,
not now, not this soon.
“What’s…?” Cordelia asked,
unaware of the silent eruption beneath her friend’s façade.
Angel blinked once, his disbelief
almost insurmountable. After everything that she had lived through,
after all that she had sacrificed, when he was gone not even in
the same dimension, no this couldn’t have happened. Dear god let
this not have happened.
But the look in Willow ’s eyes dissipated any hope he may
have had. Thrown into shock, overwhelmed at the shattering truth
before him, Angel said the only thing that he could.
“It’s Buffy.”
The End
