It's raining. I can hear sheets of cold winter water pouring on to the roof three floors above me, then running down the gutters with a sound like metallic thunder.

Fitting, isn't it? This particular morning, I have everything I should want... my health; my sanity, for the most part; the two creatures I love most in the universe on either side of me in my bed. We made love last night. All night, the three of us... a symphony of healing touch that carried us well into the morning. Anchoring affection. Remembrance and hope for the future, at least for a while. And afterward, we talked. Well, Spike and I argued, mostly... almost came to blows... but still, it was more communication than he and I had ever shared before.

And Buffy... my beautiful love... How she's grown and transformed. No longer a selfish, immature child, but a woman, full of wisdom and insight beyond her years. But her compassion hasn't changed... her Slayer's instinct for protecting and caring. We lay face to face for hours, talking over the million moments of one another's lives that we'd missed. I listened to her tales of soldiers and man-made demon-machines... about her sister, who apparently isn't her sister at all... her mother, her friends, Giles. My heart shattered for her when she talked about Riley. How much she had wanted to do what I'd asked of her -- have a normal life... normal love. I held her while she cried about how guilty she felt that she couldn't do it... how she felt like she'd betrayed both him and me... that she'd begun to wonder if there was something wrong with her, that love never stayed.

I told her that *I* still loved her... more now than ever, in fact, and that I would until I ceased to exist. I'd be willing to bet the same was true of Riley. It was only circumstances... maybe individual flaws in us, not in her. I knew that was at least true for myself.

I'm not a man who shares, much. I've been solitary for so many years, opening my heart and sharing my endless pain and small triumphs is a foreign concept. But looking into Buffy's eyes again... eyes the color of earth, sky, and grass, by turns... her warm body against me, her arms pulling me close... it was like a key had turned in the rusted lock of my heart, and I was soon telling her everything. Well... almost. I didn't bother telling her about the Day That Wasn't, or about my supposed Shanshu -- what would be the point? But I told her about the people I'd met... the work I'd been finding fulfillment doing... the family I'd built for myself (who I had spent the past months pushing away). I told her about Doyle... Wolfram and Hart... Darla...

Maybe I said more than I should have about my Sire and former lover. But isn't that the root of this decay that has been eating my soul away these past months? The confusion her reappearance brought... the feeling that I had really, finally made an important difference when she accepted her fate with such beauty and grace... I loved her for the first time during those few, brief moments of peace. To have that so cruelly ripped away -- by supposedly human beings, no less-- was what finally drove me into the insanity in which she and Spike found me. What made me question: *why* did I ever care what happened to humanity when so many of its members were capable of such... savage, cold barbarity? Worse evil than even the demons of Hell were known for?

I told Buffy all of this. Maybe I shouldn't have. She doesn't need any more burdens thrust on her because she cares about me. Maybe it was just more grief on top of all the other wounds I'd inflicted on her. Maybe I was just breaking her heart yet again.

But once I started to talk, I couldn't stop. It all came rushing out of me in a surge like a tidal wave. And when I came to that final moment -- after my Sire's death-- that final act, my greatest shame and my greatest triumph in one... when I threw the deadbolt on Holland Manners' wine cellar and turned my back on my Calling... my own humanity...

Buffy cried. Rivers of tears ran down her soft cheeks and splashed to her throat.

"Oh God, Angel," she whispered, reaching a gentle hand up to touch the tears on my own face, "I'm so sorry."

I don't know what I expected her to do. Maybe I hoped that she would condemn me... tear herself out of my arms and scream in shock and loathing. It was almost what I wanted... and certainly a great deal less than I deserved...

But she didn't get angry. My beloved didn't pass judgment on the horror I'd wrought. The murders I committed with purpose and intent. Instead, she wept. Not because of me... but for me.

Oh, God, I love her... I hold her warm, tiny body tight, taking deep, gulping breaths of her scent as I cry right along with her. I breathe her in... her aroma... her skin sweet like vanilla, like power and innocence... sunshine... wisdom and pain a woman her age should never have to possess... And now she smells like us, too. My Childe and I... her skin an aromatic illustration of everything that's happened to the three of us, together and separately. A map of my existence.

That scent is intoxicating... dizzying. Can you imagine being able to relive the most poignant moments of your entire life by pressing your nose to your lover's flesh? Being so close to her...

I'm filled with the joy of being able to touch her... and filled with fear at being compelled to touch her. The choice is not mine...

I know that we're playing Russian Roulette, here. Just because I didn't lose my soul last night doesn't mean I won't the next time... We don't really understand the Curse. What triggers it and what doesn't. Where is that line now that I can't cross? It once was simply her... touching her... being inside of her. But I've never been inside another being the way I was Buffy last night. So it can't be only that simple physical expression...

Maybe all the pain... just wondering about it... Maybe it's Spike's presence... or the low hum of voices in the back of my mind, reminding me that I'm a failure... a monster... a waste of space. Reminding me always that my hold on this reality is so tenuous...

Whatever the reason, I don't think that Perfect Happiness is even in the realm of possibility for me anymore.

Yet... this *is* joy. Not flawless, maybe, but... Her tears turn to sighs as I kiss her, long and slow... my beloved... most precious breath of my soul. She's so warm, so real, so beautiful. Her tears smell like the rain I hear falling outside... her lips taste like sunshine. I can't not touch her... whatever the consequences. The sensation of my hands on her skin is the only thing keeping me from disappearing back into the abyss again. I'm convinced, in this moment, that it is only her lips against mine, her little hands tangled in my hair that are staving off the madness that still threatens to take me at any moment.

The way Darla disappeared. Whatever potential she might have had... any chance for her redemption sucked straight into Hell...

I don't want to vanish like that. I want my soul... I want to have a purpose. I want Buffy. I want Spike. I want my friends and my life, what of one there was... I want to be well and whole. God, I want what I had back!

I kiss all of this into my Slayer's lips... let her drink it from me with her tongue... I map the contours of comfort that form her lithe body... soft breasts... the slope of waist and hips... the slight curve of her feminine belly. So beautiful... so perfect. Gods, how I wish I deserved this. Wish I could be in her arms every moment of my eternity. I wish that my only consciousness could be of her hands caressing me in return. The fire of solace and abiding, timeless love... unquenchable desire... Why can't there be only this, for both of us?

I want to forget myself in her... and that's the danger. I know this... so instead, I focus on remembering. I watch her beautiful face contort in ecstasy as I dip my head to nurse on her hard nipples, suckling her gently... as I slip my fingers into the steaming wet apex of her body. She cries out, whimpers, and I remember. Where I have failed. What I have lost. How none of this is really mine to have. Borrowed moments of passion and love. Not forever, no matter how desperately I want it. No matter what my body believes to be true.

But I still can't stop touching her... can't stop marveling in the miracle of her woman's body. How my whole being throbs as she presses herself against me, her hips thrusting upward into the stroke of my hand against her sex... This fire inside me is stronger than bloodlust... maybe stronger than my undying devotion to everything that she is... everything that she has given me...

Buffy's soft gasps are like music... a sweet melody of agony and pleasure. I kiss her deeply and swallow the quickening whimpers she makes as she approaches her climax.

Maybe I can't save the world. Maybe I'll never amount to anything. Maybe I'm helpless and hopeless and eternally teetering on the edge of sanity...

But right now, I can give her this. I can give us both some reprieve from all the agony... all our heavy burdens.

Oh, God... I need her... I want her. I have to be a part of her... her strength... her light. I need to be devoured by her power, if I'm going to hold on. I need her to help me remember...

I can smell her orgasm coming. I feel the way her muscles bunch and quiver against me... the little cries she makes into my mouth as I claim her lips.

The demon and my soul are equally driven... lost in the undeniable urge to have her... take her. Now. Now in the rain and the day that we can't see growing outside. We need this. We need each other. They owe us just this one small comfort, don't They?

I rise above her, ease my weight onto her hips, and press myself inside. Buffy comes with a cry that is more like a sob, her body convulsing, her inner folds shuddering around me, and I take her mouth as I plunge deep inside this heat, this light, the blessing of her glowing flesh...

Just this moment. Just this right now, please... Please... for all the days we're forced to live apart... all the dreams we once shared, now torn to shreds... Please. Please. I promise, I won't forget... and I don't. I don't forget a moment, a drop of blood, a single cry of pain, a plea for mercy denied as I make love to the only woman who has every truly owned my dead heart. I remember everything. Where I've been, where I need to go, but her flesh... Oh, Gods! Her body!

Buffy wraps her strong legs around me and pulls me closer, and yes, I remember how I was once lost in this... the rush of feeling, of bliss, of trust...But there's no hope in this exquisite union. No delusions of forgiveness or happy ever after as I drive so deep, I can feel her center against me. It doesn't matter. None of it matters. If I disappear tomorrow, it won't matter, because we are right here, right now, and I am safe inside my mate.

"Angel... oh, God, Angel... I love you... I love you..."

"Yes... mo croi... I need you so much..."

"Please don't let me go. Please."

"No. Never."

The words are meaningless... promises we can never keep. Things that will never be, but right now, they are everything. They are all we have.

One moment. It's only a single moment, and I don't forget even as I bend down to kiss her, and we rock into one another, lost in the pain and pleasure, and my world explodes, my aching body implodes, and all around my vision is pure light... that light I've been craving. The one at the nonexistent end of my eternally dark, infinite tunnel of pain and regret.

I can't forget even as I arch up and away from her, impaling her with all this want and need and horror... I throw back my head and wail her name...

"BUFFFFYYYYYYYY!"

Spent, I collapse above her, blanketing her small, tender form. I pull her tight against me and weep senselessly into her hair. She wraps her arms around me, and she holds me, whispering shushing nonsense... little reassurances, into my ear.

I don't know if I'll ever have hope again. Because even in the haven of her arms, I can't forget.

I slip into a sleep as deep as the death that will never come, and Spike's growling voice barely registers in my hollow, wasted mind.

"Do you two think you could keep it down over there? Some of us are trying to sleep."

* * *

I don't rest for long. The nightmares continue pulling me back to consciousness. And when I open my eyes again, realize that I still have my soul just like I knew I would, I find my first thought is of Perfect Happiness. Just one, precious, forbidden moment of it.

For humans, those moments are what make brief lives worth living. Those tiny spots of light on an otherwise mostly dreary existence. The Little Things, they say, are what help you carry on. Your children's laughter. A lazy afternoon in the sunshine. The kiss of your partner. Brief flashes of belief that somehow, some way, everything will work out in the end. Hope. Love. People string together these tiny treasures and cling to them like the lifeline that they are. The guide that brings them through the darkness.

These are the things I am eternally denied.

The past two days with Buffy and Spike have been full of things that should be those moments. They certainly have all the requisite components. Having them here at all is its own sort of miracle. And, yes... they were the light that brought me back from where I was -- their love, their tenderness, their caring, their need. Need of me. This in itself might have made me lose my soul not so long ago.

So many little instants. My Childe's arm around me in the darkness. Buffy whispering how much she loves me still. Spike mocking me, introducing a hundred new ways to call me a homosexual. Buffy's eyes lighting up while she explained how her four-inch platform shoes are perfect for Slaying because of their heavy tread.

Making love with them both...

Yes... I've been looking at flawless bliss. I've been experiencing scenes from a life I've dreamed of every night for years.

From the outside.

Their presence here is for me, I know. They mean what they say, and even more, what they do. They care whether or not I continue to exist. They want me in their realities. They love me deeply, each in their own way. These mean more to me than I can ever express.

But it's not mine. None of it.

Spike asked me why, knowing that Buffy and I could make love again... why would we not get back together?

I don't think I could explain it to him. To be honest, I'm not sure I understand myself, because some small part of me is wondering the same thing. I just know that she's not mine to have. Maybe the logic of all my old reasons have unraveled in the light of recent events, but I still feel that it's wrong. A certainty wedged into my core that I don't think I could articulate if I tried.

I know I seem better. I probably look better. By all outward appearances, my Childe and my Soul's Mate have chased away the shadows, the ghosts. They 've smoothed over the shreds of my shattered mind with their love.

And on the surface, they have. I feel better. I can smile and laugh, enjoy their presence and the feeling of their skin as I touch them. I can lie here and hold them while they sleep, and think, 'Yes, this is nice. My family. I belong. I love. I'm almost happy.'

But underneath all those very human feelings, there is still shadow. I still hear the screaming and howls of pain. The constant stream of voices both remembered and imagined that remind me...

It's an illusion, this comfort. This happiness. I'm nowhere close to absolved... nowhere near worthy. A million light years from the end of my penance. There is still so much to do... so much I have to make up for. And now, twice as many amends to make because of the things I've done with my soul intact. Those crimes are far less forgivable than the ones perpetuated by the demon.

I don't know what I'm going to do about Darla. It's true, what they say. If you destroy your Sire, you kill a part of yourself. That's why the unspoken, but strictly followed taboo against it in the vampire world. Even thought I had no choice, the last time. Even though I had my soul, and it was Buffy's life or Darla's, still I locked myself in my apartment and wept for days, afterward. I still felt the fear that the others of the Order would hunt me down for my crime. And I've had nightmares of that moment -- the way she said my name as I plunged the stake into her heart--ever since. Back then, I could stand away from it, and look at the pain from the outside -- my job was to protect the Slayer, and my Sire was a threat. She was evil. End of story. And her voice became simply another in an endless chorus that already haunted me. Just another death at my hands.

But now? Now I have to wonder if Spike is right. Having seen Darla's soul... having found that light inside of her that somehow was so strong, not even four centuries as a demon could blot it out completely. The way she reached out to me, in the end. The most hopeless of all the hopeless, the one closest to who I am and what has brought me here. She begged for my help. Accepted her destiny.

I watched hope being born in her blue eyes. Can I look into them now and drive a stake through her chest... watch her turn to dust again? Can I kill the memory of the trust I saw... that moment in her hotel room when I finally, finally felt like I had made a difference that counted?

Wouldn't it feel like murder now, even though her soul is gone?

I don't know. And I don't know if I have the strength or the will to find out.

I'm alive, yes. My Childe and my beloved worked together to save me. But do I have even one more ounce of faith and hope than I had the night I let my enemies be slaughtered in that wine cellar?

That answer, too, eludes me.

Spike's right about Drusilla, as well. I did make her what she is -- a lost child, drifting... no ties to reality of sanity but whatever strong creature attracts her attention and takes her reins. She is nothing but raw instinct, cosmic vision, and the eternal torment of a broken mind -- a mind that I molded with my cruelty... my own two hands. Can I destroy her for that? For circumstances *I* created? Shouldn't *I* be the one punished?

Then I remember -- that is the purpose of my dark existence. Eternal acts of contrition. That is why I am here. That is why I am filled with this agonized keening, surrounded by a incessant stream of impossible desires and unanswerable questions. Why to my left is another creature of my own making as wounded and far from what he once was as I... and on my right the living symbol of everything I have craved for my future. They are so close... I can reach out and touch them. Kiss them. Give them pleasure. And still, they are denied me in the end. Because I know there are still so many miles to go...

The Powers are testing the mettle of my remorse, always.

How did Spike get so damned wise?

So I lie here in the artificial night created by the thick curtains on the windows, with my distant past on one hand, and my not so distant past on the other, and think about the ways the two of them bind me to my Self... my mission... my past and future, and wonder...

What will I do when I finally leave this sanctuary of caring they've created to heal me? Will I kill the vessel that once contained hope? Will I destroy the walking reminder of my most heinous evil? Will I go back to the work I once loved so much? Will I fight to rebuild my relationship with friends whose trust I so callously tossed aside? Will things change with my two loves? Will I be able to keep my own disheartenment-- my own madness-- at bay enough to go on, trudging endlessly into a future that seems to have no conclusion?

I lie here and listen to the rain outside... slip into uneasy rest, my emptiness cocooned by love and truth, and realize...

I don't know anything anything anymore.

*****