Anything

Disclaimer: "Buffy" belongs to Joss Whedon.

Angel sighed and pushed back from the table. "Must be a client. I don't think Cordy understands the concept of 'time off'," Angel joked to Kate by way of apology.

Whoever it was didn't bother waiting.

Buffy slid through the door and stood, unspeaking.

Angel's jaw dropped. After a moment he turned to Kate. "Um. Could, uh, could you-"

Kate got the message and nodded curtly. She walked towards the door, brushing against Buffy and muttering an apology.

"Buffy, what are you doing here?" he asked, choking on his words.

Remembering.

She looked away, twirling a strand of hair around her finger. "Angel, I-" she began, then stopped and swallowed hard and started over. "Willow found a spell, to make you human, except you'd keep your strength -" she blurted.

"How did you know?" Angel interrupted suddenly.

She was confused. "What?"

"That...that just human wouldn't work...couldn't work."

Silence.

When she finally spoke, her voice was thick with pain. "Because I *remember*..."

He sat down suddenly. "They said you wouldn't-"

"Well, they were wrong," she whispered. Her voice sounded infinitely tired.

He looked down. "I'm sorry," he said, voice low.

Buffy shot him a painful smile. "I'm glad I remember...it hurts, but at least you're not hurting alone. I mean, maybe *I'm* the reason I didn't forget." She paused. "I told you I wouldn't."

Angel clasped his hands together, and looked up at her again. "Did you ask Willow to do the spell?"

Buffy looked away, ashamed. "Yes." The look on his face was one she'd never seen before, and she quickly tried to rectify her actions. "I'm sorry...it's just, I thought maybe you'd feel the way I do, and it's not like -"

"How long?" he asked, cutting her off.

She sighed and looked at the clock. 11:55. "Five minutes," she mumbled through the tears she kept inside. < I thought that he loved me... >

He looked closely at her, and swallowed. Swallowing his mind, in some ways, and for once letting his heart think for him. "Too long," he said huskily.

She looked up quickly and their eyes met. "What?" she whispered, frightened she would wake him up from what she was certain had to be a delusion.

"Buffy, I...I don't want to do this alone anymore." He grasped her hands in his and looked at her intensely. "As long as I knew being together wasn't a possibility, could never be a possibility..I was all right. But now...I don't think I'd be able to do this knowing that this could happen."

She bit her lip and tightened her grip on his hands. "So you..."

He sighed and pulled her close in a tight hug.

Buffy buried her face in his shoulder, and seven months of unshed tears threatened to spill out from beneath her eyelids.

Suddenly he collapsed, falling on his back and gasping for air.

Air?

Buffy kneeled down next to him. "Angel?" she asked desperately, shaking him gently.

He took a deep breath, and his heart felt like it was being wrenched from the spot it had been dormant in for 244 years. His rapid breathing matched the beating of his heart as he pulled her down next to him.

She breathed hard, exhaled, reached for him.

//Anything for you
Turn my castles blue\\

Their lips met in a frenzy of hands and bodies.

Needing.

Wanting.

Taking...

Everything seemed to explode, to disappear like ashes to the wind.

//Turn my bones to sand
Just to see you
I'll give you anything
I'll give you anything
I'll give you anything...\\

Buffy broke away from him and their eyes met, communicating everything they'd never been able to say.

She swallowed and knew what he was thinking. "This can't last, Angel...not any longer than it has to," she told him, trying, for once, to be the voice of reason.

He looked at her with hungry eyes. Believing, for once, in fairy tales, in awakening the princess with a kiss. "That's why we'll have it forever, Buffy, because it *has to*." He kissed her again, deeper, hungrier.

//Jackie O with the top down open
All the words to what's unspoken
Put together everything that's broken
Just to see you
I'll give you anything
I'll give you anything
I'll give you anything...\\

"Why?" Buffy managed to say breathlessly between kisses.

His eyes were dark, and he finally understood..."Because we need this. Because we can't keep fighting alone forever when we're fighting the same war."

She pressed her forehead against his, whispering, "Because sometimes the night is too dark to be alone."

//Jackie O with the top down open
A king's horse for what's been broken
Bring back even what's unspoken\\

"They won't let us get away with this, they've separated us before..." Buffy murmured. < Oh, God, stop this before it goes to far, before it hurts... >

"They *can't* now because we *won't* let them. If something happens here, we can't go back, no matter what they do. Because it would hurt you to go back, and because if they touch you, hurt you, I'll kill them."

Her face was wet with tears as she pressed her cheek against his, whispering in his ear. "Because I'll give you anything," she promised.

The rain fell outside, spattering against the pavement. Washing away the hurt. Washing away the pain.

Letting them *live*.

//Just to see you
I'll give you anything
I'll give you anything
I'll give you anything...\\

END.