A mind is a terrible thing: Angel's broken heart.
by Peaches Girl
Angel waited anxiously for the doctors to enter the room. He was still grasping Buffy’s hand hoping she would squeeze it again or better yet open her eyes.

When he got no other responses his world began to crumble and the tears he had so vigilantly held back to a trickle came streaming down his face.

“Please wake up Buffy. I don’t know how much more of this I can take. I need you baby, I need you to help me with Connor, to be with……… me.”

He failed to notice the audience that was standing in the doorway behind him.

Dr. Price and a few nurses had come to check on the alert that had sounded and had stopped just short of entering the room when he was pleading his case to the comatose woman lying in bed.

Wendy, the nurse in charge that day, thought her heart was breaking and she couldn’t stop the tears that were streaking down her face. Dr. Price gave her a warm smile and she wiped the tears away and entered slowly into the room.

“Angel, Dr. Price is here. Did something happen with Buffy?” She tried to sound normal when she spoke but her voice with crackling with sorrow and the tears she had just shed for the broken man.

Angel sat up trying to wipe his wet face as he spoke to the doctor.

“Yes, I was talking to her and she squeezed my hand. I tried to get her to do it again but…..”Another tear rolled down his cheek and he looked away not wanting them to see how distraught he really was. He wiped his face and tried to compose himself before addressing them again.

“Is that a sign? Maybe she heard me and is trying to tell me something.” You could hear the pleading in his voice and the Doctor wanted desperately to give him good news.

“I’m sorry Angel, I know you wanted to hear something positive but in all likelihood it was just a muscle spasm. The body has natural reflexes and her squeezing your hand was probably just her body flexing from non-use. I wish I had better news for you.”

The doctor gave Angel a soothing pat on the shoulder and left the room pulling Nurse Wendy with him.

Several weeks had passed since that day and Angel’s visits had become less frequent. He was having a hard time trying to take care of Connor, work, and go the hospital.

His heart broke every time he walked into the room and watched her lay limply in that bed knowing there was nothing he could do to bring her back to him.

Every visit caused his body to ache for her and the nightmares lasted for days after. So his visits went from daily to weekly, then gradually he was scarcely going but once a month.


Buffy knew she was in love with Angel but she desperately tried to push those feelings aside once she found out he was a vampire.

It was wrong, for her to feel this way about a vampire but she couldn’t deny the way her eyes lit up upon seeing him and the butterflies that beat wildly in her stomach every time he was near.

They both had agreed to walk away and not pursue this relationship. So that night when she saw him in the library talking to Giles her mind began to race with possibilities. Could he be coming to ask Giles’ permission to be with her? No, that was stupid and very 18th century of her; maybe he just wanted to help her in her fight against evil.

To her shock and dismay their conversation wasn’t about their love life, or lack there of, but of her death. Her entire world crumbled to the ground upon hearing that she was going to die. Why? Why did she have to be the Slayer?

No, no way was she going to let this happen. And he knew; Angel knew that she was going to die. Why was he here, did he tell Giles about the prophecy?

No she wasn’t going to die. She could quit, that’s it, she quit. Let them find someone else to fight the things that go bump in the night. She was tired of being the freak that roamed the cemeteries and came home every night covered in demon blood and dust.

It was crazy, all of this was just nuts, and as she resolved herself to truly quit this surreal life a fake laughter escaped her lips drawing the attention of the two discussing her doomed existence.

“Buffy?” She heard her name being said and it made her blood turn cold. She let them have it, both of them, and she told them her plans to quit and stormed out of the library in tears.

She cried her way home and upon entering the house she went strait to her room for some serious sobbing. Her mother heard her enter the house and came to her room to talk.

She didn’t want her mother to see just how upset she was and Buffy put on a happy face for her. She broke down into tears again after her mother showed her the beautiful dress she had bought for the dance that Buffy would never get to attend.

She lay in bed that night and thought about everything going on in her life. She was the Slayer, she had a duty, and the world depended on her. But she was sixteen years old, how could the world ask her to give so much when she had lived such a short time.

She cried until there were no tears left to cry. Then she decided that she would face The Master. She would face him and she would win. What did those people know who wrote that book anyway? They didn’t know her, didn’t see how she fought, didn’t stand by her side and beat the Master during the Harvest. She was going to face him and she was going to win.


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