Title: No Death In Forever
Author: Goldy
Email: [email protected]
Disclaimer: Ack! Do you really think that I would have to write a fanfic about this if they belonged to me? Sheesh!
Synopsis: Next in my little ‘Death’ series after Buffy ran away. There isn’t much I can say without giving anything away, but Buffy and Angel have a few “issues” to work out.
A/N: This is my first time writing Spike, so please forgive me if it’s horrible! Oh, and it starts out kinda on the angsty side, but I promise that if you keep going B/A mush ensues!
A/N2: Another third person one. I was originally thinking about doing Buffy again, but then I wrote about half of it from third person, so…
A/N3: sorry, this is the last, I swear. I have no idea what kind of tree Buffy and Angel sat under at her mother’s funeral, so I’m going to say that it was a maple. And another thing, I don’t know what Joyce’s gravestone said, so I made it up.
Rating: I don’t know, PG or G
Feedback: I’ll beg if that’s what you want…

Buffy was running. Her feet pounded against the cement and her breathing was labored. Still, she pushed on, driving her slayer muscles as fast as they would carry her. She had to keep going. She needed to be far enough away. Far enough away from him. Far enough, so that he couldn’t find her.

Buffy collapsed against the ground when her legs gave out. Fighting to breath normally, she realized that she’d ended up in a cemetery. Ironic. The name Buffy and the word cemetery always seemed to end up in the same sentence.

Since the running had stopped, and the breathing had slowed, Buffy’s mind began to work again. Things started coming back to her. Doubts and worries. Betrayal and heartbreak.

‘Why didn’t he want it?’ Buffy thought. ‘Why doesn’t he want me?’

The same thought kept going through her mind over and over again, no matter how irrational it was. The same thing had happened when he had left her, she had wondered for months—years—why he had left.

But, now, when the biggest barrier standing in the way could be gone, he didn’t want it. And Buffy couldn’t help but think that she was where the blame lay.

She wasn’t sure how long she stayed in the cemetery. After a while Buffy realized that her face was wet, and that she had been crying, but it was all very surreal. She wasn’t really here in this graveyard. She was at home, by the fire, with the man of her dreams reading poetry in a language that she didn’t understand, but was beautiful anyway.

Half of her was screaming out for Angel to find her, like he always managed to do. Then, he would hold her in his arms and promise that everything was going to be okay. He would tell her that Willow’s offer had just confused him, and that all that he wanted was to be with her like that.

And half of her dreaded that he would find her, because when he did, he would have a nice rational reason for why he couldn’t take the gift that Willow was offering. Either because he had to find his reward on his own, or because it was too easy. His reasoning would make perfect sense, and he would state it calmly and surely.

And all the while Buffy would be thinking, ‘is it me?’

Buffy leaned back against a headstone and surveyed her surroundings wearily. It was only then when she realized exactly what cemetery she had run into. Straight across from her was a big maple tree with a large trunk, and Buffy didn’t have to turn her head to know what grave lay only a few meters away.

Buffy felt a fresh bash of tears coming on. Using her hands and knees, she crawled the last few feet to her mother. There it was. The grave that her dead mother lay in. Buffy let out a loud sob, and lay down on the ground next to it.

“Mommy, I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I wish that I could do this without you. But I can’t. I was the slayer, but you were always the strong one. I want him to be able to do everything for me mom, but he can’t. He doesn’t even want me….” Buffy choked on another sob, and reached out trembling fingers to brush the inscription on the grave stone. ‘Joyce Summers’ it read. ‘Beloved friend and mother.’

Buffy’s vision became a blur of dirt and tears. “I don’t know what to do, mom. I don’t know how to act around my friends, I don’t know how to take care of Dawn, and I don’t know how to get a job. I thought he would make it all better… but he can’t… and I don’t think anyone can.”

Buffy picked herself up from the ground and walked with her shoulders slumped and her head down to “that” tree. She stared at it with wide eyes as the memory went through her head. Sitting there, telling him about her life and her troubles, letting him make it better, even if it was just for a while. Just a little while.

Buffy felt her sixth sense tingle and she spun around when she felt movement behind her. The vampire took a long puff of his cigar, before dropping it and putting it out elegantly with the tip of his boot. “Spike.”

He gave her a smirk. “Who else were you expecting?”

“Get out of here,” Buffy snapped, not wanting him to see how upset and mentally weak she was.

He held up his hands. “It isn’t safe for a girl like you to be in the cemetery at this time of night.”

Buffy folded her arms over her chest. “Go. Away.”

Spike gave her the once over, spending way too much time looking at places that he shouldn’t. “You look like something the cat just dragged in.”

“Why are you still here?”

“Hey, I’m just concerned is all! You okay, luv?”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “I will be as soon as you leave!”

Spike sauntered up to her and Buffy frowned, nervously moving back a couple of steps. “You don’t really mean that.”

“Yes, I do. I mean it a lot.”

“You need me, pet.”

Buffy shook her head, “No, no I don’t.”

Suddenly Spike stopped his advancing and reeled back in disgust. “Bleedin’ hell! You smell like my bloody grand sire!”

“You can smell that?”

“Damn right I can smell him! The poof as well as made me! So, that’s it then? Soulboy’s back in town and you hop into his train?”

Spike was coming closer with his fists bawled and Buffy surprised herself by taking another step back. She felt the tiniest bit of fear at seeing Spike all riled up. She gave a little gasp when her boot got caught on a root and she stumbled and fell butt down in a mud puddle.

Spike closed the distance between them and stood towering over her. “Look at you… all lost and alone. No friends …. Where is the poofter now? Did he finally realize that you weren’t worth all the trouble and turned you down?”

Buffy closed her eyes and willed herself to get up and fight Spike. He couldn’t hurt her because of the chip, but she almost found herself wishing that she could let him…. No, she wasn’t going to wish for things that weren’t possible.

Buffy jumped almost a mile when she heard a ferocious growl behind her, and then, a dark figured tackled Spike and pinned him against a tree. Buffy held her breath as she watched Angel, full game face on, punch Spike viciously. “Stay. Away. From. Her.”

Spike eyes widened in fear when he realized that he had just been caught attacking his grandsire’s mate. Still that didn’t prevent him from teasing the old guy a little. “You mean like you did for two years? Need I remind you that it was *I* that fought along side her for two years and it was *I* that was there when she jumped off that bloody tower!”

Angel growled and threw Spike on the ground. He executed a quick sharp kick to his childe’s stomach, which left Spike coughing and writhing on the ground. Angel held out a stake so that Spike could see it. “If you *ever* come near her again, I’ll kill you.”

Spike closed his eyes and choked up blood. “I love her. Yeah, that’s right, mate! I, William the Bloody, fell in love with the bleedin’ slayer!”

Angel looked at Spike rolling around pathetically on the ground and found some small measure of sympathy in his heart. “I should rip of your head for saying that,” Angel tossed the stake back and forth in his hands. “Leave. And don’t come back.”

Spike took one look at his grandsire and knew that he was serious. He forced himself to a standing position and to walk away.

When Angel was satisfied that Spike wasn’t going to cause anymore problems, he turned back to where he had last seen his slayer. She was in the same place, but facing the opposite direction. She was sitting in a ball with her legs pulled up to her chest. He noted the way that her bottom lip was trembling in time with the rest of her body. She was staring intently at a spot in front of her. Angel followed her gaze to find a maple tree.

He felt his cold dead heart seize up in his chest. He cursed himself for his gruff behavior towards her before and not finding her earlier. He cursed his grandchilde, who seemed to have made things worse for her. And he cursed Willow for putting them in this position to begin with.

Walked up behind her, kneeling himself down on the ground so he was level with her. “Buffy?” She didn’t say anything and continued staring ahead. Angel sighed and took off his jacket, wrapping it around her muddy shoulders.

“I couldn’t fight him,” she whispered.

Angel clenched his jaw, already regretting letting Spike get away. “I know.”

She shrugged. “Thanks for saving me. Again.”

Angel thought about all the times that he hadn’t saved her, but he kept his mouth shut knowing that they had more important things to discuss. He tried to take her hand, but she flinched away from his touch and looked away from him. “Buffy….”

“Don’t, start. Look, you made your decision. You don’t want to be with me. Fine. But don’t make things harder.”

Angel looked at her in shock. “How can you even think that? Of course I want to be with you! All I’ve ever wanted was to be able to be with you!!!”

Buffy turned and looked him straight in the eyes. “Yeah? Then, why didn’t you act on any of them??? First you left me, and then you picked being a vampire over being with me, and then you turned down a chance at taking out the happiness clause!”

Angel did a double take. “What… what did you say?”

“You heard me,” Buffy said bitterly. “Remember how I said some things were fading from being in heaven? That’s one of them. Sometimes I think that all that day was is part of my imagination. Every day it keeps getting further and further away from my mind, but I do remember knowing in heaven that you were human at one point and we could be a normal couple and you… gave it up.”

“To save *you,*” Angel added.

Buffy snorted. “And look at all the good *that* did.”

“Buffy don’t be this way…”

“What way? The way I get when the one person I thought loved me, turned down the thing that we *need* to make this relationship work?”

“What, you think that this is easy on me? Do you have any idea how much I wanted to say yes to Willow and make all of our problems disappear? I had you just in reach, and I turned it down!” Angel stood up and glared down at her, his earlier concern replaced by some anger.

Buffy looked at him angrily, and then her resolve seemed to weaken and she buried her head in her arms and sobbed. Angel watched in horror as her whole body convulsed with heavy sobs. He felt his earlier anger disappear as quickly as it had come, replaced by a bone-deep guilt.

Angel got down on his hand and knees and pulled Buffy gently against him. She went without much of a fight, and continued crying against Angel’s chest as he caressed her back and rained kisses in her air, whispering words of comfort.

“I don’t know,” she mumbled against him, “I don’t know how you felt. All I knew is that you didn’t want me…”

Angel grabbed her chin and forced her tear-streaked face up so he could look her in the eyes. “I want you. Every single minute of every single day. But we couldn’t have taken the easy way out. I need to earn this reward, the consequences of letting Willow fool with magic this large, could be deadly. And I’m not willing to risk that.”

Buffy sniffed. “She brought me back from the dead.”

“And look how that turned out. No matter how much I want it… taking the easy way out isn’t the answer.”

Buffy shook her head. “But don’t you see? It isn’t the easy way out! We’ve waited so long for this. We were apart for more than two years. I died, Angel. Getting this wasn’t easy. I don’t care how simple it would be for Willow to cast this spell, it was hard to get here.”

Angel pressed a kiss to Buffy’s forehead. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

 “Weren’t you the one that was asking about Willow and her magic just a few hours ago? Didn’t you want to know what she could do?”

 Angel smiled thinly. “Maybe. But that was before I saw her. Buffy, Willow is treading on the brink of something that she can’t control. It wouldn’t be fair for us to make that worse for her.”

Buffy looked away. “I don’t care. She owes me this.”

“Now you’re just being selfish.”

“*Sure,* take *her* side.”

Angel could feel Buffy physically withdraw from him and he gave a silent sigh. She really knew how to make things as hard as possible. “Buffy, that isn’t fair.”

Buffy moved away, and stood up. “Whatever. Think what you want, I don’t care.”

Angel sighed. “Buffy, stop being so disagreeable.”

Buffy turned her back on him. “I’m not the one being disagreeable,” she said so softly, that Angel had trouble hearing her words even with his vampire hearing. “You’re the one that won’t take this. It isn’t too easy, Angel. You’re just scared. That’s the real reason that you won’t take it.”

Buffy forced herself to walk away from him without looking back, no matter how much it hurt. She gasped in surprise when he grabbed her arm and forced her around to face him. “Great, so that’s it? You blame everything on me and then just walk away? Becoming quite a habit for you isn’t it? I won’t take Willow’s offer, and you run away. I explain to you why, and you walk away.”

Buffy ripped herself away from his grip and stumbled backwards. “What about you, huh? You were the one that left *me* in the first place!”

“You promised you wouldn’t forget! And then you walked away!!!” As soon as the words had left his mouth, Angel instantly regretted them.

Buffy’s face crumbled in pain, and she turned away from him so he couldn’t see how much his remark had stung. “Get away from me.”

Angel took a step forward. “Buffy…”

Buffy whirled around and regarded him dangerously. “Go. Away.” She hissed through clenched teeth.

“Buffy, stop this! We can’t walk away from this. We need to talk about it.”

“We don’t *need* to talk about anything. And I can do the walking away thing.” Buffy walked past him, “Look! I’m doing it right now! See? It’s easy.”

Angel regarded Buffy’s back helplessly. “Buffy wait! Please…” Buffy pretended not to hear him and kept walking. “FINE!” Angel yelled. “YOU WERE RIGHT! I AM SCARED! PETRIFIED! YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE TO HAVE A DEMON LIVING INSIDE OF YOU!” Angel felt his resolve weakening and he closed his eyes in pain. “You don’t have to live with the fear of hurting the people you love if something goes wrong.”

Buffy stopped dead in her tracks at the sound of Angel’s voice. She bit her lip, cursing herself for being a selfish bitch. She walked slowly back to him, keeping her eyes on his face the whole time, but he refused to look at her. “Angel, I’m sorry… I don’t really know what to say.”

“I think you’ve said enough,” he said flippantly.

Buffy sighed. “You’re right.”

Angel finally looked at her. “It wasn’t just you.”

Buffy nodded. “It wasn’t. You could have just told the truth.”

“I couldn’t…. I didn’t even fully believe it until you mentioned it. I didn’t want to sound petty.”

 Buffy took his hand. “Angel, it’s me. Buffy. You can tell me anything.”

Angel looked at their entwined hands and took a deep breath. “I can’t bear the thought that Willow might not have a complete handle on the spell. I can’t leave you the way that you are now, Buffy. Would you be able to survive it if Angelus was set lose?”

“So, I guess the question is,” Buffy said softly, “is it worth the risk?”

“Nothing is worth the risk of Angelus being set free.”

“Not even me?”

Angel looked at Buffy seriously. “*Especially* you.”

“But, Angel, there are ways to do this safely. We can chain you up, and if the spell doesn’t go right, Willow can always curse you again.” Buffy protested.

“Magic isn’t something to play with. A soul isn’t something that can just be given or taken away at will. If it were that easy, the world would be a lot different. If the spell doesn’t got the way that we want it to, I won’t be coming back.”

Buffy bit her lip and tried to keep the tears at bay. “But it *is* worth the risk, Angel! Don’t you see? *You’re* the only thing keeping me alive and sane. You’re right that if I lost you than I wouldn’t be able to go on, but if it worked… let’s just say that true happiness would definitely be around that bend.”

“Buffy,” Angel whispered his voice cracking a little, “don’t do this…”

“Do you love me?” She asked suddenly.

 “What?”

“Do you?”

Angel gave a small smile, apparently reliving another time, just like she was. A time when their problems had been so much smaller, and things were as easy as they had ever been between them. “I love you.”

Buffy licked her lips. “And do you trust me?”

Angel smirked. “This might be a little bit of a change from our original dialogue, but… I trust you. Completely. Totally. I’d kill myself if you told me to.”

Buffy looked away, remembering a more painful time when he had done just that. Close you eyes…

”This is where you tell me that if I trust you, I’d take Willow’s offer, right?” Angel mumbled.

Buffy snapped out of her reverie and nodded. “Unlike some people, I have a good feeling about it. A feeling that you should trust.”

Angel took a deep breath. “I trust it.”

“Good.”

“But we aren’t going to just go and do this. We’re going to take a long time looking for a spell. And we’re going to research every possible aspect of it, until we know that absolutely *nothing* can go wrong,” Angel said firmly.

Buffy wrapped her arms around his neck, and pressed her muddy body firmly against his. “Every precaution. Soul magic isn’t something that you can just mess with.”

“Funny, because I know this little blonde girl, and she always manages to put my soul in danger…”

Buffy leaned her head up. “Really? Who is this girl?”

Angel brought his face down to meet hers. “You actually know her quite well,” he mumbled before pressing his lips to hers in a searing kiss.

When they pulled away, Buffy took Angel’s hand and led him to a maple tree. She sat him down and snuggled into his embrace. “Thanks for saving me from Spike by the way. It was very macho of you.”

Angel grumbled something under his breath, and Buffy could only make out a few words such as ‘respect for their elders’ and ‘how dare his childe touch *his* mate.’ Finally, after much muttering and even some swearing, Angel held Buffy tighter as if to warn others to stay away from her.

“And the jacket, too. This is what? Like the 10th one I’ve gotten from you? Should I start giving them back?”

Angel ran his hand around the base of her neck, smirking when Buffy shivered under his touch. “Mmm, I don’t know,” Angel mumbled, replacing his hand with his lips.

“Angel! Stop!” Buffy cried. “This is bad! Your soul isn’t permanent just yet.”

Angel gave one last nip to the bottom of Buffy’s ear and whispered, “Keep them.”

Buffy leaned back and sighed. “Happy to.”

Angel frowned and looked at the sky. “You know, I hate to say this, but… sunrise is coming.”

Buffy closed her eyes. “You should probably get inside.”

“No… before we do, I want to get something right.”

Buffy turned around to face him. “What?”

Angel gave her a thin smile. “I’ll stay as long as you need me.”

Buffy gulped. “How about forever? Does forever work for you?”

Angel lovingly pushed a lock of her hair behind her ears. He leaned forward and pressed a quick kiss to her lips.

“Eternity wouldn’t be enough time.”

The End!

 

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