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i. shock and denial
Her body lies unmoving in the murky pool of water. Her white dress billows in the black.
He can smell her blood in the dense, musty air. It sickens and enthrals him in equal measure. Deep inside the beast bellows with laughter.
They’re not too late. They can’t be.
Without waiting for the boy, Angel runs over to Buffy and pulls her from the underground pond. It’s a crude procession of moves and her wet limbs dangle awkwardly from her torso. She’s heavy in his arms. Too heavy for such a small frame. Angel has touched many bodies like hers. He knows what death feels like. He forces the thought from the forefront of his mind.
It can’t be. He cannot have failed her so thoroughly. He cannot have failed her so fast.
He touches her wrist, lowers his ear to her mouth. Searching for a sign of life. A single breath. A weak pulse. He doesn’t need to listen closely to know both are gone.
Her skin is so cold it makes him shiver.
Angel always knew the Slayer’s days were limited, but this is an ending beyond his lowest expectations. Not only was she killed by his kind, she was slain by his kin. She didn’t even survive her first year.
Xander’s shaky steps thunder into the quiet of the cave. He stops at the entrance and gapes at the scene from afar. He, too, doesn’t comprehend what has happened.
For once the boy and Angel have something in common.
“She’s dead,” Angel says.
Xander releases a sound of dismay and breaks from his stupor. He stumbles forward and slides down to where Angel is crouching. “No. She's not dead,” he says with the stubborn conviction of youth.
“She's not breathing,” Angel observes. How can he make it clearer than that?
“But if she drowned, uh, there's a shot! CPR!”
CPR. Angel has never performed CPR. He’s killed men, women and children, but he has never tried to revive another being. He doesn’t even know if he can. If there is any air in his lungs at all. He can smoke and talk and clear his throat. Does that require air? And if it does, does the air hold oxygen? Or is the exhalation of a dead man something else entirely. “You have to do it. I have no breath,” Angel tells Xander before he loses himself in the chaos of his thoughts.
Xander takes off his jacket and lays it over Buffy. A gentle and useless gesture. He kneels down by her face and looks at her for a moment, then puts his mouth on hers and blows into her lungs. He lets go and begins to pump her chest. “C'mon. C'mon!”
The boy is trying his best, but Angel knows it’s not enough. Desolation begins to creep up on him, its cold touch tickling his neck.
Xander breathes into Buffy’s mouth again. “C'mon! Breathe! Breathe!” he shouts, but his voice sounds small and hollow.
Angel just watches. His limbs stiff like they’ve been restrained by iron shackles.
There’s no silver lining to be found in this darkness.
“C'mon!” Xander calls again, but his efforts are waning.
And then he just stops.
ii. guilt
He should have never let things go this far. Not once. And definitely not a second time. He’s older. More experienced. He has an understanding for both the endlessness of time and the shortness of life. Still, he let his impulses take control.
It’s all his fault. He’s long passed the stage of denial.
The road in front of Angel is dark and dusty. He doesn’t know where it will take him exactly, except far away. It’s the only way he can mitigate the damage he’s done. His fingers clench around the steering wheel. His foot presses down on the accelerator pedal.
Loving someone should not be their demise, but Angel's love doesn’t build, it only takes things apart.
Above him the stars twinkle in the night sky, eternal witnesses to this tragedy.
He broke her heart over and over. He endangered her life, more than he helped. Whatever he touches falls to ash, and he's just glad he had the strength to leave before he ruined her completely.
She tried to kill a human to save him.
She let him feed from her.
If he hadn’t ended their relationship already, either would have been the tipping point. Not because he judges her for her actions. But because her loyalty to him made her something she’s not.
She’s not a murderer. She’s not a demon’s pet.
The oncoming traffic is a blur of engine sounds and mushy lights. White washed-out spheres that disappear from view as quickly as they approach his field of vision. They blind him, making his eyes water. He draws the back of his hand across his face.
He can’t drag Buffy into the abyss that birthed him, and yet he already wishes he could have her back.
iii. bargaining
If the Powers That Be had asked Angel to give his life for Buffy’s, he would have. If they had asked him to walk on hot coals or let himself be tied to the Caucasus mountains, he would have done that, too. His allegiance to her isn’t a product of guilt, but the most noble conviction he’s ever held.
But, this. This is too much to ask. Even of him.
The moment after the Oracles have spoken and before he has made up his mind only spans a few fleeting seconds, but to Angel they appear deathless and vast. The room churns. Marble arches spiralling until they become a maelstrom.
An hour ago Angel stood on the peak of the mountain, now he is falling falling falling.
On the way down Angel recites every prayer he knows, runs over every fable and tale, as if the Holy Ghost or Theseus could tell him a way out of this maze. In his mind he volunteers everything to the Powers he has to offer. His fealty, his loyalty, his strength. He will do their bidding, if only they let them be. He will support Buffy as best as he can. Fight the forces of darkness until his dying day. He will do both even as a mortal. They only need to show him how.
But they don’t. No red thread guides him to safety.
Instead brother and sister have already turned their backs to him, walking away, unconcerned with the concerns of a mortal. No one accepts Angel’s silent propositions. The moment vanishes and in his despair he offers what he values most.
Buffy.
For Buffy.
iv. anger
Angel’s knuckles throb with pain. The skin is chafed. Blood has dried and darkened along his fingers, on his palms and on his wrists. Crusty residue crumbles under his nails. He doesn’t know whether it's his own blood or someone else's. He doesn’t care. The anger still surges through him like a wildfire. His nerves burn white and hot with rage. He can’t remember being this angry before. He can’t remember much of anything. Not what Willow said to him. A waterfall of empty verbiage that spewed from her mouth. Practised condolences. Forced bravado in an effort to move on from her own loss.
They’ve failed her. Her friends. Her watcher. The world. They have failed her over and over again.
And so has he.
It’s not the first time. But it’s definitely the last. There’s no use in bargaining.
There will come a day when Angel has to grapple with his own shortcomings, but tonight he searches for someone else to blame.
At the hotel he stoically waited for Willow to finish her sermon, all the while hoping she wouldn’t cry. He couldn’t console her. He didn’t want to call back the empathy that was slowly slipping away. He didn’t want to keep his monster in check, he wanted to set him loose. He told Cordelia and Wesley to take care of Willow. Fix her a room.
And then he left.
He turned on his heel and walked back out of the door he had just entered. He walked. And walked. Until his feet began to move faster and he ran. He didn’t wait for cars or traffic lights, caused at least one collision and got struck twice. He didn’t feel the grills colliding with his legs or how his head hit the asphalt. The sound of breaking headlights and screaming horns a fickle whisper in the night.
He runs his fingers across his temple and his cheekbone. The abrasions sting, but the pain doesn’t make him reconsider. Rage still moves him on. His anger is a flame that burns every kind notion he ever held. It’s a fire that consumes every good deed he ever committed. It will burn until there’s nothing left. He might as well and the whole damn world with him.
Angel didn’t feel his feet anymore when he reached the hideout at Angelus Rosedale cemetery. Of all the fucking places. As if the world was mocking him.
You couldn’t save her, you bastard. The Powers That Be picked you out of a gutter. They gave you a second chance and one job to fulfil. And you didn’t.
He razed the vampire nest like a conflagration. Not turning back as he moved on.
Now he hunches on a stack of pallets, watching the harbor alleys like a vulture. He sees the demon long before the creature notices him. It’s probably prying on foreign sailors, lost in the maze of Harbor City or returning drunk after a rare outing on land.
Angel rips out a plywood board from the pile and the splinters dig into his hands. He sneaks up to the monster. Just before he reaches the beast, it turns. Angel doesn’t hesitate. He hits the demon in the head and it topples over. The creature tries to get up, but Angel kicks it back down.
“Get up!” He screams! “Get up! You freak! Fight me!”
The board surges downward again and again. The demon stops moving long before the beating dwindles out. Its head has turned to a mass of green-grey pulp. “Fight me!” Angels screams one last time, but the words come out as a choke. He drops his makeshift weapon and sinks to his knees. Tears burn in his eyes and his vision becomes blurry.
It’s going to be daytime soon. Most of him doesn’t care. His rage has consumed him. There’s nothing left. No coherent thoughts, no guilt, not even grief. He can smell the shift in the air as the sun rises, and beneath the piles of ashes the last ember of self-preservation flickers.
What would she think, if she could see you like this? Wasting your life a second time?
Angel wipes away the tears with the back of his hand. A diluted red trail runs down his face in their stead.
The sun must be on the horizon any minute.
Angel looks up to welcome the deadly rays before they strike.
They don’t.
A large freighter has pulled into the harbor. A wall of corroded steel looms over him, shielding him from daylight.
It’s the salvation he doesn’t deserve.
In its shadow Angel rises.
v. depression, loneliness and reflection.
The heavy office door falls into its lock. Angel remains alone in the dark. He steps over to the liquor cabinet and pulls out a bottle of 30 year old whiskey. Slowly pours himself a glass. Takes a sip. It tastes foul in his mouth. Angel pours the rest of the drink into his wastepaper basket and shortly after the glass follows the liquid with a chink.
Behind the wall of necro-proof windows the highrises obstruct the sky from view.
Angel sags into his $6000 office chair and drops his face into his palms.
He can’t trust anyone. Not his employees. Not his friends. Not even Buffy.
Only hours ago the notion made him burn with anger, but now that the fury is subsiding all he feels is shame. He must have taken his ruse a step too far.
Still. He thought she would know him better than this. That she would know his true intentions, even if he lied. He always just assumed that they would have each other’s backs.
Now he’s not so sure anymore. A chasm lies between them that all the loyalty in the world can't bridge.
On the other side of the door people are still moving. Wolfram & Hart never sleeps. It’s a monster set out to devour. It has killed his family. Cut his lifeline to humanity. Made the one person mistrust him, who he believed he could rely on no matter what. It will swallow him whole.
vi. reconstruction
“I’m not going,” Angel says.
For once Spike is speechless. His cigarette drops from his mouth and onto the ground, where it burns a small hole into the carpet before Angel puts it out with his boot.
The irony isn’t lost on Angel. The situation would be funny, if it wasn’t sad.
Their romantic rivalry, their stupid cavemen conflict has ceased to be. Years of nagging and fluffing their feathers have come to an end with one sentence.
All it took for Angel to win, was to lose.
Who would have thought the move also put Spike into checkmate.
It’s not the first time Angel loses Buffy, not even the first time he does so willingly. Years ago he was too much of a demon and too little of a man. Then it was the other way around. And now? He‘s not a good man, or the partner he wants her to have, but his current state encompasses more than he was ever able to offer. He is a super human fighter. He used to be champion of the Powers That Be. Thanks to Willow, the curse is no longer an issue. They could fight side by side and enjoy each other's company. At least for a while.
But Angel chooses not to.
Buffy has a life at the other end of the world. A job beyond daily slaying. A boyfriend. Dawn is safe and enrolled in college. Too much time has passed. He can’t just waltz up to the castle and ask her to reconsider all of her life’s components.
Spike, of course, has a different view on their love-square. He wants them to fight it out. Fly to Scotland and have Buffy choose between three men. And for one shameful second Angel even wants to accept the challenge. There’s a cocky Irish lothario in him who relishes the game, who’s convinced he will win. Luckily he has become better at self-reflection over the centuries and a second later the temptation has already ceased to be.
“I’m not going,” Angel repeats. “I’m no good in her life.”
Spike brows furrow, his confusion slowly shifting to anger. The assertion does not only end their tug-of-war, it puts Spike’s motivations in question as well. His morals. Having a soul is one thing, behaving accordingly is something else entirely.
Angel doesn’t want a life with Buffy, if it requires taking her life apart. It’s a lonely thought, but it also brings him clarity.
No solid structure can ever be built on a heap of debris.
vii. acceptance
It is the logical conclusion.
The one destination his road was always predetermined to reach. He’s fine with that. He has known for a while. He was never destined to be a builder and reconstruct, he was always meant to break.
Dust and dirt cake Angel’s eyes and nostrils. Blood oozes from his abdomen and down his side. He can’t make sense of his surroundings and he doesn’t care to. Fighting noises float above his head, buzzing like flies in search of carrion. They might be close or very far.
It matters not.
Angel isn’t scared anymore. Instead, a river of calm winds its way through his body. His arms and legs are warm, the craggy ground beds him soft like a cushion.
This is the end then. The one battle he won’t see through to the final strike. The knife cut the demon from his body, leaving him an empty husk. Life hangs by a thread and the red band will rip soon.
Through the shouts and clatter a familiar voice drifts toward him. Calls a name he should recognize.
Cold, searching hands run over his body, touch him softly, curl around his throat and press down. The smell of decay enshrouds him and a dark firmament with tiny stars unfurls in front of his eyes.
It is the other logical conclusion to his existence. One day he would fall prey to his own beast.
Screams cut through the darkness and the hands disappear.
Angel inhales. His lungs expand beneath his broken ribs. The sensation hurts in more ways than one. He coughs up phlegm and lets his body sink back into the dirt. He’s not a thinking being, he’s an automaton.
There was a time when things were different. It was only for a short while, but it felt meaningful nevertheless. Angel had purpose then.“Save the girl,” the man with the hat told him. “You’re all she’s got.” The request never sounded easy, although it shouldn’t have been hard to fulfil. Keep a teenager from dying. Just for a year or two. What could it take? Teenagers weren’t supposed to die at all. Except this one. The chosen sacrifice old men immolate to appease their angry gods.
A yelp lanced with pain echoes from the rugged walls.
Out of reflex Angel shifts his head.
The girl is still fighting his demon with stubborn determination, but her moves are getting slow and sloppy. She's tired. Angel has seen enough fights to know that she’ll lose. Her loyalty will cost her her life.
Angel has never been a good man. He has never been a hero. But maybe neither is required.
He rolls his leaden body over until he lands on his belly with a nauseating squish. Pain sears through his torso like Greek fire. Unrelenting, neverending. The whole world is agony.
His field of vision shrinks.
On the other end of the cavern his demon grabs the girl by her hair, pulls her head down, and rams his knee into her face. Blood spatters from her broken nose.
Angel puts his hands beneath his shoulders and claws into the ground. Clumps of earth dig their way beneath his nails. He gets up, grabs a discarded sword.
The girl lies on her back, the demon hovering over her. He retracts his clawed hand, ready to take her out.
Loving someone should not be their demise, but Angel's love doesn’t build, it takes things apart.
The sword impales the creature from behind, the blade sliding into its flesh with surprising ease. Angel doesn’t hesitate or think about what this killing means. It's not a sacrifice. It’s a necessity. He pulls the blade up in a diagonal line, and severs head and shoulder from the rest of the monstrous body. For one second nothing happens, then the creature explodes into a cloud of dust, and centuries of terror end without so much as a sigh. This death is nothing special. Angel has destroyed the likes of him a thousand times.
“Save the girl ,” they told him. “No matter the cost.”
Save the girl.
He thinks he did.
As the particles settle, their eyes meet. She is wavering, blood seeping from her nose to her lips. His hazy gaze wanders to his own bloodied hands, back to the girl, back to his hands, back to Buffy. Her name is Buffy. And he offered her all that he had.
Angel.
For Buffy.
Every memory they share replays in his mind.
Let‘s say I‘m a friend. Do you think I want something to happen to you? I'll always be with you. Can I do anything? I can stay in town as long as you want me. Shoulder to shoulder. I'm yours. I’m here. What do you need?
Her tired eyes widen.
What he was, who he is, all he can be - she sees him.
The sword drops to the ground, and in the breath between standing and falling Angel lives.
This is what Shanshu must feel like.