Summary: Angel's been in Buffy's dreams before Amends....
Spoilers: Ummm, Becoming through BATB
Disclaimer: These characters aren't mine, no matter how much I wish they
were. <sigh> They belong to Joss Whedon and the WB I have to live with
borrowing them for my stories.
Rating: PG
by: Amy
I was in Hell. There were no other words that would, or could describe it. When I think back on the time I spent there, I can almost feel the flames licking at my face and body, the wails of the dead.
Hell is a place that is hotter than a thousands suns, and more horrifying than any of the slaughters I used to take part in. But that isn't what left me with the biggest impression. It was the voices. More correctly, the whispers. Whispers of a million lonely souls, the sound of thunder against glass. Nothing now will ever tear away that sound from my ears. Even when I listen to my beloved's voice, it is still there, on the edge of my mind, grasping at me and begging me to pay attention. But what can I do now?
I would roll around in fire day after day, year after year, it seemed, doing nothing but concentrating on the pain. I didn't know why Buffy had done it. After two minutes, my mind wasn't working enough to figure out why, or even to remember the months that led up to that brutal night.
Then, one day, seemingly centuries after I was sentenced there for my sins, something different was there. That isn't entirely correct, though. What I should write was that *I* wasn't there. I was somewhere I had never been, even in my years as a human, and I was seeing something I hadn't seen ever since I could.
I was on a beach, looking at the sun.
The waves crashed against the shore steadily, and I knew intuitively that I was here to be with her. With Buffy. She stood in the sand, ten feet in front of me, and I took a moment to gaze greedily at her frame. Her light pink sun dress fluttered in the wind and she lifted her head to let the sun pour down on her face.
I walked towards her, the one person I knew capable of defining beauty in her face and heart. I felt as though I was being pulled to her by an invisible rope. In the few steps it took to get from where I was to where she was, I was in literal pain for not holding her. I slipped my arms around her waist, and she slid her hands up to mine, lacing our fingers together. She leaned back against me and I inhaled the scent of her hair.
The water flooded over our feet and she rubbed her head against my chest. I saw her eyes nearly close in contentment and for a moment, I was content too. I was with her, where I was supposed to be, and even though I could not figure out why or how, I was allowed to feel peace with her in my arms.
Her voice was as soothing as the sun and the wind. "How did you find me?"
"If I was blind, I would see you," I answered without hesitation. Her hand snaked up and she laid her palm flat on my cheek, stroking my face with all the tenderness in the world. More tenderness than I deserved. I was grateful for it. The ancient ring I had given her, it seemed so long ago, created a coolness on my skin in contrast to the warmth of her hand. I hugged her tighter to me.
"Stay with me?" She was only a little uncertain, and her voice filled my soul, a soul that had been lost to me twice, with infinite joy. Joy like that is indescribable. I can compare it only with her. The most brilliant human on Earth, for she brings joy into everything she does.
"Forever," I affirmed. "Isn't that the whole point?" I felt her head nod against me and gave a small smile. "I'll never leave," I continued, a trace of my old accent seeping into my words. I leaned closer to her, brushing her ears with my lips. She shivered. My voice dropped to a whisper.
"Not even if you kill me."
As her body went stiff in my arms, I was sucked away from her, with no time to wonder what had made me say that. And I was in Hell again.
I don't know how much time passed after that. Time is so hard to measure in Hell. I would guess decades, perhaps, even though now I know that it could not be true. Such physical and mental tortures are nothing one is able to ignore. But then, once more, I was torn away.
I was at Buffy's high school, in the middle of the quad. Again, it was daylight, though I was mostly covered in shadows. I waited, knowing she would be there soon. She had to be.
And so she was.
She drifted down the stairs with an eerie grace, and looked at the mist that set around us in the empty school. Walking forward, she stared at the fountain that wasn't on, almost as if in a trance. I slowly approached her, and she looked up at the sound of my footsteps. Her eyes brightened with clarity for barely a moment when she saw my face, before clouding over in uncertainty again.
"I thought they would be here," she murmured sadly. I clasped my hands together in front of me as we walked.
"They are. They're waiting for you." And as I spoke the words, I knew them to be true. I wanted nothing more than to embrace her, and pull her to me, but I couldn't. In direct difference to the beach, where I had been drawn to her by something that wasn't only me, here I was kept away from her, as if there was a pane of glass between us.
"Is this a dream?" She sounded frightened, and I had to fight from taking her in my arms. I somehow knew I wasn't allowed to. Something prevented me anyway.
"I'm probably not the one you should be asking." Again, I recognized truth in my words, words that I had nothing to do with forming. Thoughts that weren't my own. But they were true. Small mercy.
Her voice was tiny and uncertain. "I'm afraid." I knew she was begging me to comfort her, to tell her anything that would take the tremors in her heart away. I struggled with my mouth for a moment before letting words slip off my tongue. I knew before I said them that I wouldn't like them. I tried instead to focus on being with her, being out of where I was, than what I was about to say.
"You should be."
I watched her walked slowly, confusedly forward, and I was taken back.
The third time I met with her was something that I would rather forget. For a moment it was me in her arms, me dancing with her to the sweet strains of a love song, but just as quickly as I was taken away from Hell to be with her, my mind was clamped down on.
Her arms were wound around my back, pressing me to her, and I bent accordingly, gathering as much of her body as I could in my arms. She was everything sweet. The smell of her, the even breathing of her body. I felt her heart pound against her chest and I tightened my arms around her.
As her hand slipped down to my hips, I slid one of my own down to greet her. The smallness of her hand in mine did much to warm my spirit. Our rings clashed, and I felt hers slowly slip off her finger. It clattered to the floor.
I slowly pulled away from her, and she looked at me sadly. Leaning down to pick up her ring was when I felt it. It was as if something invaded my mind, forcing me to be a spectator in my own body. Struggling against it was of no use. I was it and it was me.
My hand clasped the ring in it tightly and I looked out through my eyes. What I could feel of my face, it was glaring at Buffy who looked horrified. Hot blood seeped from the cut in my hand that the ring created. Trying to soothe her with my voice didn't work. Words that weren't mine came out again, this time accusatory and hateful. "I loved you."
Buffy blanched. "I... I had to."
The skin in my chest was punctured by an invisible sword and I felt the blood seep through my sweater. Buffy looked at me in horror and reached out. "Oh, God, Angel!"
The shout that came in my voice kept her at bay, though I was weeping internally. "Go to Hell!!"
An evil smile crossed the face that I would have recognized as mine and a laugh accompanied. I could feel the skin decay in an instant and I met her terrified and sorrowful gaze. "I did...."
She was gone.
So was I.
Ever since I've gotten out, with the release of Buffy's love for me, I've pondered those moments. Everything was there, everything was felt. I knew that Buffy was there, but know I wonder why I was allowed to dream in Hell. A place of such suffering, why would it give me any moments of peace, or soothe me at all, especially as it did in the first dream? It didn't seem possible, or fair that this was something I would have to go through, something I would be allowed to feel and experience, only to never feel it again.
And then I realized. Maybe that was the justice of it all. I *did* have peace. I *was* allowed to hold her. Now, not only in dreams, but in the world, in my bed, in my heart. She stays with me where ever I go. I think eternal love is like that. Maybe instead of seeing the punishment of my fate, I should be looking at the reward.
I mean, how many souls are given access to that kind of heart, that kind of love? Not many, I'm sure.
But I am one of them.
The End