Archive of Our Own

Later — centuries later — he'll realize this wasn't the first time. That if it hadn't been for his own choice in death, there would have been nothing unusual about this life, this love.

But Liam is seventeen, and all he knows is that mulberries bother him and that Romeo and Juliet is his favorite play despite the fact that it's English and that it's about love.

He's almost a man at this point, but certainly still a boy. He goes to Church and listens to his father and realizes they are Irish and Catholic, and that's not a good thing to be. He's of the age he's supposed to be looking at girls, but not too closely, and certainly not at English ones.

But the girl — Elizabeth — is a pretty lass, with a thin nose and golden curls, and there's no harm in looking, he thinks. And if she looks back? Well, he wasn't telling their fathers anyway.

He truly meets her for the first time this time next to the mulberry bush that he hates marginally less when there are no blood-red berries. She's looking at the buds with a puzzled expression, and only jumps slightly when she notices he's approaching her.

"Hello, sir," she says.

Liam doesn't like English accents, but he thinks it works for her.

"Hello," he replied.

He lets them fall into silence as he looks at the other side of the bush. She speaks first.

"I— I've seen you around the town," she ventures. Her cheeks are flame red.

It confuses him slightly, for reasons he can't name. He'd thought she'd be… bolder.

He doesn't know why he thinks that.

"I've seen you, too," is what he says. "Elizabeth, isn't it?"

She nods.

"I'm Liam."

"Liam," she repeats. "That's a pretty name."

He raises an eyebrow, smirking. "Pretty? I'll have you know I much prefer 'handsome'."

Elizabeth smiles. "Perhaps both fit."

"Perhaps," he says. "But you're certainly the pretty one here."

Her blush is a pleasant pink this time. "I— I'm afraid I must be going."

"Of course." He bows slightly. "It was a pleasure to meet you, Elizabeth."

Her returning smile is as sweet as summer strawberries.

"It was a pleasure to meet you, too," she replies. "Liam."

Elizabeth leaves quickly, but glances behind as she goes.

Liam has charmed girls before, though he has not brought any to bed and does not yet plan to do so before the marriage bed. But he already knows there is something different about Elizabeth, and not just because she is English and Protestant.

They start meeting in the back of fields. In secret, though neither have dared admit that fact and bring any sordid guilt to their blossoming feelings.

She has yet to let him kiss her, but Liam is certain she wants to. She tells him of her father instead. Elizabeth is respectful of him — he is learning that she is the perfect daughter in the way he will never be the perfect son — but there are certain stories that make him almost glad for his own father.

Almost, because Liam hears the mutterings in the privacy of their home about those heretic Englishmen. And as much as he hates England as much as the next Irishman, it's not— it's just—

Maybe she believes in religious doctrine wrongly. But it's not as if he fully understands it himself. The truth is—

The truth is simple. Elizabeth always gives him the ripest strawberry she picks, and Liam has never felt the Love of God clearer than through the gentle kindness of a heretic.

Liam is eighteen and Elizabeth sixteen when Fate finally catches them.

It's not as short as Verona. But not nearly as long as childhood in Babylon.

Elizabeth is lovely, and beautiful, and young. She has no prospects here in Galway. Liam had somewhat prepared himself for Elizabeth's father to bring her back to England to find a husband, but he was not prepared to see the result in person.

Elizabeth comes to the mulberry bush late. She is quiet, quieter than she usually is, and the mulberries that have once again come to represent their love turned to doom.

She trips over her words. "You— you saw the carriage arrive?"

He nods. He can't look at her.

"That— Father say he is to be my future husband."

Liam takes a deep breath. He hates the smell of mulberries.

"I— Liam—"

He doesn't know what to say. But he looks up from the ground and sees the tears in her eyes and pulls her into his embrace before can even consider what he's doing.

Elizabeth cries.

Liam has seen her cry before. When she told him about her mother, when they found a dead bird, even just when she was frustrated. She is a gentle person; that isn't a surprise.

This was different.

Elizabeth sobs.

Liam still doesn't know what to say. So when she starts to calm, he kisses her.

It's a simple kiss, fit for a first one. Yet, their lips fit together as if they've done it a thousand time, as if they will do it a thousand more. That is what prompts him to say, "You don't have to marry him."

Her hands start shaking. "You don't know my father. He—"

"There's always another way," he says. "We can— I don't know but—"

Elizabeth's eyes fall to where her hands lie on his chest. Her voice is hollow. "I can't marry him."

"You won't."

He doesn't know what he expected.

Women do not have freedom. Somehow, he'd never considered that before. But he was still certain she'd fight.

Running away. faking her death. confronting their parents.

His father hadn't realized how much the news mattered when he brought it home.

But this life had hurt her too much for that.

"Did you hear about the English girl?"

This was as strong as she could be.

"She killed herself."

The grief isn't surprising. He's been grieving since he met her. What surprises him is the anger.

Elizabeth was stronger than that. He knows that. He thought she did too.

And yes, maybe it would have ended up like this anyway. Liam's not naive enough to think they weren't doomed from the start. But the fact she didn't even try makes something ugly twist in his heart.

He knows his role in this. The tragic lover who learns his love has died.

He knows he's played this part before.

He considers it. But every time he looks at poison, or a rope, or a knife, he wonders if this was how she did it, and he can't stand to look at it.

Life may be hell without her, but he can't stand following her there.

The next years pass in a blur. He drinks, and he has sex, and he never ever goes to church. If he could bear thinking about it long enough, he'd remember how Elizabeth was the perfect daughter until she choose her end, and he is the worst son and yet can't take that last step, and he'd laugh.

But he doesn't think about her, and some days he even succeeds in that endeavor.

His father kicks him out, and Liam imagines leaving years earlier. He flirts with the barmaid, and he imagines her hair is lighter. He drinks, and he almost doesn't imagine anything.

He gets kicked out, and doesn't imagine a blonde woman in an alley.

Liam dies, but he lives on anyways.

Was this when the cycle snapped?

He'll never be sure.

But he knows it was the start.

Angelus remembers her, because he cannot forget anything.

It's… almost amusing now. That he'd thought her strong.

He's in Spain, separated from Darla, when he sees her a girl who shares her looks so strongly he's half-tempted to discover if they're related. It doesn't matter, though, because that fact wouldn't change his game.

Liam had thought Elizabeth strong. Angelus would prove Isabella was not.

There are differences between the two. Isabella's hair is brown, where Elizabeth's was blonde. There's a few subtle differences in their facial features that mark her as a Spanish woman instead of an English one. Her family is poor, and much much happier. She's happier.

He tries to find more differences, and it bothers him that he really can't. He tells himself it's because he can only watch her at night.

Angelus starts with her father. Unlike Elizabeth's, Isabella's father could actually be considered a good man, and his death would truly hurt her.

He stages the scene like a mugging gone wrong. A shame, because the man hadn't had anything worth robbing. The death is early enough in the night that he's able to see her reaction through the window, and it's just as satisfying as he hoped.

Isabella's face shuts down. Her elder sisters pull her in for comfort, but she doesn't respond, simply staring out into the distance. Staring at the window.

Staring at him.

Angelus tilts his head, but makes no expression as to give away the game. It is a coincidence her gaze found him.

He knows it's not.

She stares for a moment longer before her mother says something and snaps her back.

From that moment on, he knows he'll only pretend the game is as simple as he planned.

The night after the funeral, Angelus makes his way to the grave just in case.

He is rewarded for his hunch by a kneeling female figure all by her lonesome. Isabella's fingers are playing with a lily flower by the grave, its white color a sharp contrast to her black gown.

After a moment of watching, she seems to feel his eyes on her, and glances behind her.

Her eyes widen, but she doesn't say anything, only shifting slightly to the side so he can see the gravestone.

Angelus approaches, not breaking the silence.

She isn't in the mood for conversation either, so they sit in that silence for perhaps half an hour before Angelus hears the sound of Isabella's oldest sister approaching and leaves as silently as he had come.

Her mother would have been next, but she is already wasting away in her grief, and that death will be much harder on Isabella.

He decides to take a different approach.

The middle sister of the family had managed to secure a job as a seamstress in a better part of the town, one that found reputation very important. It is child's play to spread the right rumors. Within a week, she had been fired, and quietly blacklisted from other work in the area.

The way the family gathers together in face of difficulty is sickening.

The death of the eldest starts to test that resolve.

Again, Angelus goes to the grave the night after the funeral. Again, Isabella is there. This time, she speaks.

"I think you're some sort of angel of death." She speaks in Spanish, with the accent that comes with it, but her cadence is the same.

He lies and tells himself it's a coincidence.

He smirks. "I'd say you're rather correct."

She looks down, yet again playing with a lily.

"If I'm the one seeing you," she asks, "Why are they the ones dead?"

"I'm not going to kill you."

Isabella pauses, looking up. "Why not?"

He debates how much to tell her.

"If you want it to stop," he decides upon. "You have to do that yourself."

Perhaps he's being cruel. He knows it can never truly stop.

But then.

"I don't understand."

Maybe it's kindness. To gets her away from this version of him.

"You will."

Centuries later, and he never figures it out.

Her remaining sister dies supposedly of sickness. Isabella might know better, depending on how mythical she believes him to be.

Her mother dies of grief soon after. That is not directly his fault, and that only makes it more satisfying.

He visits their graves too, but Isabella has nothing to say to him. At least until it's almost sunrise at her mother's.

"I have no family left."

He pauses. "Perhaps not family. But people always have someone."

She has him, in a way.

He hasn't figured that out.

She has co-workers. A boss who can disappear and take her job with him. She has neighbors, and people she's friendly with.

Not all of them die. He wants to stay somewhat subtle for this. Personal, for a girl who reminds him so much of his past. And anyway, the ones who live are ones who can always die later.

She could leave her home. Move far, far away.

"I couldn't leave you," she tells him in another life.

He would follow her anywhere, but he almost thinks she'll try leaving anyway.

"I wanted you dead," he replies.

But Isabella loves her family, and so she cares for their graves.

"Yeah. But you were still there for me."

When she visits at night, he visits them too.

Isabella hasn't made any move to kill herself. Angelus almost wishes she had some sort of suitor he could destroy, but the only ones she loves are her dead family.

The problem is— The problem is that Isabella hadn't been hurt like Elizabeth had. It is what Angelus had learned right after his turning: some pain is worse than death. And here, some pain is worse than grief.

"I still don't know what you want," she whispers one night. They are back at her father's grave.

Angelus answers simply. "I want you dead."

Her brow furrows. "Why? Why don't you just kill me yourself?"

He chuckled. "That would defeat the point, Isabella."

She shakes her head. "I don't understand you."

Angelus doesn't know what makes him respond like he does. "I think you do."

She turns to look at him now, brown eyes gazing deep into his own. She bites her lip. "You're right. I… I feel like I've known you all my life." She takes a step forward, braver than any maiden outside a tavern. "I think you're hurt."

Angelus holds back a laugh that she sees anyway. "You overestimate me. I do this because it's fun."

She shakes her head, a smile almost forming. "No. There's something else." She pauses for just a moment. "You want me dead. Is it because you want me hurt too?"

They're closer now, and her heart beats loud in his ears. He wonders…

His one kiss with Elizabeth was soft, and sweet, and sad. His one kiss with Isabella is the epitome of taking.

Neither feel like a first kiss.

It's searing, red hot, and yet he can taste an innocence to it. Despite the ease in which her lips rest against his, she had never kissed a man before. That thought makes something in him croon, and he just wants to keep on taking until everything is gone. When she forces herself away for just a moment to take a breath, Angelus scowls and quickly pushes her back into himself.

"Please…"

He's glad to oblige, and places his hand deeper into her hair, hardly noticing the lack of the pins as he brings the two of them closer and closer. His other hand reaches for her skirts.

She reacts immediately. "No!"

In a moment, the heat disappears, and she pulls herself away, panting.

Disappointment blooms in his chest. "You're a proper maiden, then?"

She shakes her head. "No. I mean, yes. I—" Isabella looks at him again, something broken in her eyes. "You're not right. I don't know— There's something missing."

He almost doesn't know what she means. He almost doesn't know what he'd thought he was imagining from the first moment he saw her.

They were meant to meet.

She calls to him.

But not like this.

She calls to Liam.

Angelus lets out a growl, and turns away before he can sink deeper into her.

He doesn't go to the cemetery the next night. Or the next. It's not until a week later, and he's not sure if Isabella will be there.

She is.

She doesn't move when he approaches, but he knows she senses it anyway.

"I don't know what you are," she says. They're at the gate of the cemetery, where she can look across the way and see only the barest shapes of all her family's graves. "But I cannot kill myself. Not for you."

He thinks he knew this was coming.

How can they be a tragedy if he gets what he wants?

"Alright then."

He turned her towards him, almost gently.

"Close your eyes."

She hesitates a moment. She knows what's coming.

But Angelus smiles like Liam used to, and she nods, closing her eyes for one last time.

Her blood is the sweetest he's ever tasted— 

It almost tastes like mulberries.

—But he cannot let himself give her his blood in return.

Decades pass, and most days Angelus never even thinks of her. Either of her.

Why should he, when he has Darla — and eventually, Drusilla — to pass his time? Even without them, he's far too busy reveling in his depravity to focus on a topic so frustrating because, simply put, Angelus never loved her like Liam loved Elizabeth.

But sometimes… sometimes he still thinks of her. He almost thinks of her fondly.

Which is what makes it ironic that he refuses to do so in the first two years of his re-ensouled existence.

In Romania, his focus is on all the blood on his hands. All the people he killed. While he is somewhat responsible for Elizabeth's death, it was not nearly as direct.

He thinks about Isabella once. He thinks, for a moment, that he's grateful her death was quick. The thought is so quickly followed by disgust and self-loathing that he will never be able to forget he thought it.

But after that moment, his thoughts are consumed by Darla, and the far-off dream of the sweet release of apathy.

He follows her to China, and all he knows is that something about it feels right.

Too right.

Darla takes him back. He thinks it what he wants. What he needs.

But as they walk through the blood and the death and the chaos, he sees her.

He doesn't know her name here. He doesn't think he ever will.

"恒婷," she remembers, Chinese rolling off her tongue easily despite never having learned the language. "Heng Ting."

He cannot stop and stare, no matter how much he may want to.

"I always knew something was missing in that life."

He could never explain it to Darla. That he had seen a Chinese woman for a mere moment and known she was like two European women he had known, both long dead.

Then he comes across the family, and Darla tests him with the baby.

He fails the test.

But the mere glimpse of her somehow—

Always

—reminds him of what he tries to forget. Today, it's that for all the time he spent with Darla, for all she changed his life, he has never loved her.

He's not sure if he avoids her on purpose.

He doesn't see her again for a while.

It's been eighty-two years now. He has started to go by Angel, or he would, if he had spoken to a human being in the five years since the doughnut shop.

Angel's gotten pretty good at avoiding people.

He's not perfect, though, especially during the day when it's so difficult to change locations. Not to mention he's often sleeping, or lost in his memories, the latter of which is what he's doing when she first approaches him.

"Excuse me?"

He knows it's her just by those two words, but turns to confirm it anyway.

Her curls are tighter this time, voluminous and wild and dyed a rather pretty strawberry color that matches her darker skin well, and which brings him back to better days picking the wild fruit with Elizabeth. She's wearing pants, too, which is something he hadn't considered before, but fits the person he could see in Isabella, and sometimes glance in Elizabeth.

"Are you alright?"

He should probably ignore her. Let her live this life without his deadly interference. But he's always been weak, and knows that the memory of Isabella's blood will keep hers out of his mouth.

"Well enough, I guess," he tells her, voice rough with disuse. "Besides the obvious."

She smiles at the joke, and takes a step closer. "Good, you're coherent. I was worried I would have to call someone about some drunk guy."

Angel smirks. "Can't afford it."

She laughs now. He relishes it. He's rarely seen her laugh.

"Well, with that established, is there anything else you need?"

There is a constant between her that he's never noticed before. Her compassion always goes before everything else. He wonders how he's missed it.

She's still looking at him, waiting for his response. He hesitates, but— "It's silly," he tells her, "But… could you tell me your name?"

She doesn't understand why he's asking — or if she does it's so far down it might as well not exist — but there's an edge of innocence this life has left in her, or maybe she can tell just how much it would mean to him.

"I'm Tiffany," she tells him with another beautiful smile. "After Breakfast at Tiffany's."

Angel's mind calls him back a moment, but it's to a rare, better memory. "I remember seeing that movie."

Tiffany's smile turns to a grin. "I love it. I love all of Audrey Hepburn's movies, really, but, you know, that one's my name."

"Names are important," Angel, not Angelus nor Liam nor any of the rest he can't fully recall answers.

She smiles, before she glances at her watch and jumps. "I'm sorry, I have to get going! It was nice to meet you!"

"It was nice to see you too," he replies, and she's gone, with just the briefest whiff of vanilla left to prove she was there.

He isn't expecting her to come back, but he should have known better. It's inevitable.

It's secretly his favorite part.

"Hello!" she calls. Even though it's night now, Angel stays where he is, not wanting to frighten her.

No matter how many times he messes up, he's given another chance.

"Hello, Tiffany."

"Hi," she repeats. She's carrying a take-out bag with her tonight. "I'm sorry, I just realized I don't know your name."

He smiles slightly. "Angel."

"Oh, that's a pretty name!"

It's so familiar he can't help but wince.

Her enthusiasm quickly shifts to concern. "Are you alright?"

"Fine," he forces himself to say, pushing away the wish that Elizabeth's smile could have been as bright as the one before him. "Just— memories."

Tiffany nods. "You're a war veteran, aren't you."

It's technically true. He nods.

She moves closer. "I know the type. My brother was in the war in Vietnam, and I know he was never the same after that."

"It's… an experience."

"You don't have to talk about it!" she clarifies. "I just thought I'd let you know what I'd pieced together. And give you this." She hands him the take-out bag.

Angel looks in. A burger and fries. Useless, and yet the sweetest thing anyone has done for him in… centuries, really.

"Thank you," he tells her. "Sincerely."

Her smile is soft. "We've got to do what we can to help people, right?"

Angel has tried to help people, so many times. It's failed again and again. And yet, Tiffany's words almost make him want to believe.

He still doesn't really expect her to come back.

She surprises him, and he thinks she will continue to surprise him every time she does come back.

Even if he knows he would always come back to her.

She brings herself food this time to, and — since she's in clothes that she won't mind getting ruined by New York City grime — sits crossed-legged opposite of him.

"What's you favorite burger topping?" she asks, licking some ketchup off her finger.

Angel shrugged. He can't taste much of it. "Onions, I guess." The sharpness rang through a little bit.

Tiffany scrunches her nose. "Really? Not ketchup or pickles or anything?"

A smile twitches at his mouth. "Yeah."

"You are so weird, Angel."

"I am."

Tiffany sighs, putting on a show of being melodramatic. "I guess I'll have to accept your silly burger preferences."

"Thank you," he deadpans.

She snorts. "You better remember this the next time I do something weird."

"Like eating dinner with a homeless man?"

"That makes you just as weird whenever you eat with other homeless people."

"Never, then."

She pauses at that. "Do you not have any friends?"

Angel wonders what he should say.

Not since the 19th century when I terrorized Europe with other blood-thirsty vampires.

Only you.

Never, really, since we've never just been friends.

He just shrugs.

"That's… really sad, Angel."

He can't quite look her in the eye. "I'm not a happy guy." His voice drops to a hoarse whisper. "I think you know that."

Tiffany is silent a moment.

"My brother committed suicide," she says. His head snaps towards her. There's anger in her eyes, the kind he saw in the mirror back when he was Liam and Elizabeth was dead. Something in him settles even as his heart goes out to her.

"The one in the war?" he asks.

She nods. "I think that's why I started talking to you. Because I don't want someone else to… to go through what he did." She blinks away a few tears. "I never noticed how much was weighing on him. I was so distracted with—" she shakes her head, her voice as soft as a kitten. "Please don't kill yourself, Angel."

"I haven't yet."

She makes a face. "Things can always get worse."

"Yeah," he answers bluntly. "It always can. But I've seen suicide. A lot. And it never actually helps."

The cycle will still repeat, over and over.

There is no break, no respite.

Just tragedy and death and—

"Life is where the love is."

She meets his eyes, and he knows they're both thinking the same thing.

He knows what she does not: that it can never happen. Because that's when Fate shows up.

She keeps showing up. He knows he should push her away, and he knows it clearer after every conversation, every burger with onions, every ringing laugh and shake of vanilla scented strawberry hair.

Angel has never been a good man.

Tiffany pushes him lightly, when she thinks she can. Suggests shelters, or jobs. Things that might help a normal man.

He can see her heart break every time he refuses, but she tapes it up with the skill of practice, and keeps her joyful smile on her face, certain she will be able to do some good this time.

Maybe that's why he doesn't push her away. She thinks she failed her brother, and thinks she can make up for it by helping everyone else. If he disappears, that determination will crack.

Angel can't bear to be the one to hurt her.

He thinks that could have been their fate.

It could have been this life's tragedy.

He's not the one who hurts her, because someone else does it first.

Angel doesn't see it.

He didn't see Elizabeth's.

He wonders if that makes it better or worse.

Isabella's blood will never leave his hands. But he still saw it.

It's not suicide. He doubts it will be again. It's not romantic anymore.

It never was.

It takes him a few days to notice that Tiffany hasn't come by in a while.

For a moment, he thinks she's figured it out, that he's not worth caring for, but he knows her too well for that.

Angel can only look at night, and even with all the skills he's learned over his long, long life, it's slow. He persists anyway, but thinks he only finds out because Fate knows it hurts him.

There's an obituary in the newspaper from a couple weeks ago. Her small picture smiles back at him.

There was no murder. No terrible justification. It was a tragedy, but not a Tragedy. Angel was not involved, and that only makes it hurt more.

There is no guilt to shoulder, and her words on kindness and compassion are rendered meaningless by some senseless violence at a crowded protest it's no surprise she was at.

He throws the newspaper away, and knows he will never have onions on his burger again.

Angel has had too much practice at this point. He doesn't know if Whistler knows, but from the moment he says "I want you to see something", he knows it's her.

It surprises him how much she looks like Elizabeth.

Every version of her has looked similar. Race, hair, eyes aside, there has been something clearly her. But this girl is the same age as Elizabeth. The same blonde curls, the same hazel eyes. She is happy and confident and everything Liam thought she could be.

It feels right, once he learns she's the end.

An older man walks up to her. "Buffy Summers?"

It fits her, he can't help but think. It's a bright name.

The man continues, and— "You are the Chosen One. You alone can stop them."

She's the Vampire Slayer.

He'd thought the cycles had been broken. Not fully, but. They had never been as truly star-crossed as before.

He knows it's righted itself now.

Angel watches her first patrol, and knows she will die. He debates whether his interference will bring that time sooner or farther, until he see her with her parents.

Buffy is not the same as Elizabeth. But he thinks she could become that.

"I want to help her."

He needs to help her.

He would always find his way to her.

He thinks he's choosing it this time.

She senses him when he follows her. Part of it could be that she's a Slayer and he's a vampire, but he remembers Isabella did the same.

"Is there a problem, ma'am?"

"Yeah, there's a problem—"

Buffy is not as trusting as Tiffany. Good. She will need that in this life.

"—Why are you following me?"

He keeps his tone cocky in a senseless action to prevent the inevitable. He loves her already, and he prays that his pain at her coldness to him will be tragedy enough.

From their very next meeting, he thinks that — whether it would be enough or not — it won't happen.

"Can you at least tell me your name?"

He hesitates just a moment. "Angel."

"Angel," she repeats. "It's a pretty name." Her tone is dry, but it still causes his heart to sink.

He knows it's over when he can't tell her he's ever had a friend, because he can see the empathy in her eyes as her tone goes softer.

He knows they're going to love each other this time, and he doesn't have enough strength to stop it.

He hopes she's the one to kill him.

He's only actually seen her dead the once, but he's killed her twice. Known her dead three times, though he technically had to have known of a fourth version of her who died.

Simply put, he's not sure how he'll handle a fifth.

But this instinct has never been so strong as it is now.

Angel's tried to help her, as much as he can. He told her about the Harvest, and pieces of information he'd picked up about various monsters. He helped her fight the Three.

But he'd gotten to close, he always got too close, and he'd gotten the vampire side of him revealed.

Darla comes and taunts him, poking at truths he's known since the beginning.

"I want this finished."

He's tired of cycle after cycle. Buffy won't feel bad about killing this version of him, so he should let this tragedy die.

But she's so compassionate. She's so smart and— Well, it's not a surprise she needs an explanation.

They have a second kiss.

They've had them in other life times. But.

This is his first second kiss with her.

This feels real.

Angel had thought it hurt to remember killing Isabella. It's so much worse holding her dead body as himself.

She's a drowned angel dressed in white, and he can imagine what a pretty picture they make, another pair of doomed lovers who never stood a chance.

But Xander is there. Someone outside the cycle, someone who can breath his own life into her, and he wonders…

Did they break it?

Buffy is not dead.

They're still Slayer and Vampire.

After Buffy returns from LA, after the weeks of back and forth, they start reach that equilibrium.

The calm before the storm.

Things are becoming settled.

It's a beautiful calm, though.

He likes to pretend he doesn't remember. It's not easy, but it's easier when they're only Buffy and Angel.

But then Halloween comes and—

The dress is something Elizabeth would have loved, and her hair is brunette, loose and wild in a way that violently brings Angel back to the night he killed Isabella. Her eyes are Buffy's from the first night he saw her, crying in her bathroom as her parents fought, and her words are Elizabeth's from her worst days, everything he wanted to protect her from.

The spell ends, and he tries to push the memories out of his mind as Buffy explains her insecurities to him.

He tries his best to reassure her without lying, though he never considers trying to explain Elizabeth to her.

"I always wished I could meet someone exciting," Angel assures her.

"Interesting," he says.

Stronger, he thinks.

You, he knows.

Buffy likes to hang-out with him in his apartment. Sometimes she brings homework along, and occasionally she asks him for help. This time, she's more frustrated than ready to ask questions.

She throws her book down with a huff, and Angel holds back laughter. She sees it anyway, and rolls her eyes. "Don't you get started, Mister Over Two-Hundred Years Old. I bet this stuff is easy for you."

"What is it?" he asks.

She makes a face. "Romeo and Juliet. There's so much—" she waves her hands wildly."Thees and thous and it's stupid."

Angel raises an eyebrow. "You're reading Romeo and Juliet in your head?"

"Yeah?"

He smiles softly. "Buffy, it's a play. It'll make a lot more sense if you hear it out loud."

A mischievous glance forms in her eyes, and she picks up her book and moves to sit right next to him. "Want to try together then?"

She's on Romeo and Juliet's first meeting. His eyes skim over text he still remembers from his human days, and clears his throat. "If I profane with my unworthiest hand…"

The words are familiar, and far too real.

Not what an Italian boy really spoke, but close enough to it.

His hand has never been so unworthy, yet it runs fingers through golden locks as she leans against him, listening intently.

He finishes the four lines quickly. "…with a tender kiss."

Buffy begins speaking, awkward and not quite picking up the beat of the meter, but she seems to notice the touch of sarcasm in the lines. "And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss."

The lines are more back and forth now, and ease between them grows even as Romeo and Juliet's tension increases.

"Thus from my lips," he says, "By thine my sin is purg’d."

"'They kiss'," Buffy quotes from the stage directions, a happy little smile on her face and she turns her head. "You know, since we're saying this out loud and all."

Before he can reply, she stretches up and kisses him, wrapping her arms around him as he returns it.

A reminder of tragedy should not make him so content.

He finds himself falling deeper and deeper into her, into not just the feeling of her lips on his, but in the little things, the petty little drama that he's never had the chance to experience with her, when tragedy isn't the only part of their relationship.

Buffy is beyond everything he has ever experienced, and all he wants to do is find out more; to burrow himself further into her heart.

Their night together is the culmination of those feelings. He knows — he knows — if they can continue past this, the cycle will have been broken. Knows that even their natures won't be able to stop them.

So of course they can't.

Angelus comes back more fully understanding what he'd started to realize with Isabella.

"To kill this girl, you have to love her."

His soul's love has killed her, over and over and over. Angelus doesn't love her. He can't. But he sees the beauty in the tragedy that Angel never did.

He doesn't realize it will hurt him too.

He takes it slow. Buffy is a Vampire Slayer, and he knows he'll need to lead her into the pool of blood he's pouring out for her slowly, letting her accept her stained socks before it drowns her lungs.

There's a difference he doesn't account for, though.

Isabella had been waiting for him — for his soul — though she hadn't known it. Buffy has loved that soul. She is not so willing to accept any sort of dark substitute, struggling as she is to take his life.

He needs— He needs a tragedy. This is just a stalemate, and it's starting to grow old.

In the moments after he regains his soul, Angel doesn't remember the last few months. Buffy is in front of him, crying and hurt, and he's… he's so lost. But he loves her, and when she tells him to close his eyes, he does.

He doesn't know why she stabs him. It's painful, almost a betrayal, but what hurts more is the look in Buffy's eyes.

He never wanted to see her dead body again, but even without knowing the context, he knows he wishes he could take on all her pain instead.

In Hell, he hopes he does. Hopes Buffy isn't feeling the pain he knew so well in the last years of his human life.

He knows she is.

He comes back.

Just like she did.

Angel isn't thinking much during his initial return from Hell, and his vague notions of stars and cycles are one of the last things to return. But he does remember ending after ending to their story.

But in this life, they keep living, and rising back up, and each fall is getting farther and farther. He doesn't how the story can get worse.

They try to stay apart. They know they will not.

And then the ghosts of his past appear to him. None of them say it directly. Just reaffirm the fact that he will fail, and Buffy will die. He doesn't— He knows how this has to end.

Back to the beginning.

Angel thinks maybe if he's out of the way, Buffy will follow Liam's footsteps. Stay alive for as long as she can, mourning but never thinking too hard.

He tries to forget how much Elizabeth dogged his every step.

So he stands on that hill, waiting for the Christmas sun to swallow him whole.

She follows, and she is no more Elizabeth than he is Liam.

Buffy is angry, and hurt, and desperate to prove what he wants to be able to believe: that they can both live.

"Strong is fighting! It's hard and it's painful, and it's everyday."

He can't believe it. He knows she's right, but Buffy doesn't remember, and she can't understand that this is the only way he knows.

It won't stop the cycle, but there is a peace in oblivion.

"…And don't expect me to mourn for you because—" she cuts off at the same time Angel feels the cold flakes begin to land on him. He can't help but look around, first in confusion, and then in awe.

This is—

This is nothing short of divine intervention, and he can't rationalize it any other way.

Angel believed Fate had it out for him, for them. This is something different. Something new.

Something hopeful.

At the end of it all, he's pretty sure this is the real place the cycle broke.

Hope is rare and fleeting, and Angel's resolve for it is tested, and failed, multiple times as the years go on.

None test it as much as Buffy's second death.

It's not right, that he should miss it.

It reminds him of Tiffany's death except—

Except that death was the loss of any opportunity.

He had been given time with Buffy, and that only makes it hurt worse.

—he lovesd Buffy so much more. She was the personification of his hope, his mission, his sunlight.

He lives through it.

Angel wonders it it's just the practice, but it still feels wrong, even after his talk with Cordelia.

A part of him isn't surprised she's brought back to life again.

Angel has always wondered how much Buffy remembers. Any version of her, but especially Buffy, with her intimate relationship to magic and the supernatural.

He learns now, now that she has knowledge no living human should know so vividly.

"Now that I'm back," she tells him, fiddling with her sleeve as she leans against his chest. "It's sort of hazy. Blurry. But I could have sworn—" She glances up at him. "Do you believe in reincarnation?"

He shrugs. "Sort of. I… I know what you're talking about."

Neither of them dare speak it out-loud, in case the dream-like knowledge pops like a bubble.

Buffy stares at him intently a moment.

The same way Isabella did, searching for a soul that hadn't been there.

That was there now.

"How many of—" she cuts herself off, but he knows what she wants to know.

"Four," he says simply, though he can't bring himself to say any of his story out-loud, even to her.

She nods. "And the rest?"

"Flashes," he admits. "Feelings. You help them grow clearer."

It's a strange compliment, but it makes her lips twist. "Flashes aren't quite right for me. They're too hazy for that. But feelings sound right."

"They're familiar feelings," Angel says. "Love and grief."

"Life's two constants," she quips. "After taxes."

She is not happy, but there is a peace in knowledge, and it's the only peace he can give her.

For once in this life—

For once in all their lives

—Death isn't chasing them.

The Senior Partners are no more, and the Shanshu prophecy Angel had though he'd signed away had come true anyway. Buffy is still the Slayer, still gets to use her overwhelming compassion, but now she is one of many.

It's not easy, even with Fate leaving them alone. They've never been one for fights, but they need to have a few. They don't need to make up, but they do anyway. They talk to each other, and sometimes it ends with yelling, but more often than not it ends with a kiss, until they finally realize that the only thing keeping them apart is fear.

Fear that it will all be for nothing. Fear they'll be separated again. Fear that nothing has changed.

Being human had never stopped tragedy before.

But it works.

They grow older than they've ever been, their marriage lasts more than days, the problems in their way are overcome with careful deliberation. Their pasts stay between them, a silent, unspoken understanding.

One night, when they are not old but not young either, they lay on a blanket in their backyard and sit together, watching to stars. It's there Buffy wonders, so she asks.

"What do you remember about our past lives?"

It had never It had never been said out loud before, but there is no shift in the universe at the confirmation. It's just Buffy asking Angel another question about his long life.

He hesitates just a moment, and then he speaks. "Later," he begins to tell her, "Centuries later, I realized it wasn't the first time. That if it hadn't been for my own choice in death, there would have been nothing unusual about this life…"

The stars twinkle far away from their entwined forms. They will cross them no more.