Finals came and went in a blur. Even the realization that she hadn’t flunked out of school wasn’t enough to put more than the weakest smile on Buffy’s face. She tried to be reasonable about things with Angel. She tried to convince herself that she just needed time, that the stabbing ache of pain in her heart would eventually fade. But it never did fade. She never got used to seeing the empty room he occupied for such a short time.
Sleep became a thing of the past and she picked up a paying job at the Hyperion manning the desk after hours. Lindsey’s job would have paid better, but she couldn’t take it. Not after everything that had happened. She enrolled in summer school just to have an excuse to hang around campus. The art history class would fulfill a requirement she needed for graduation, but Buffy couldn’t even try to lie to herself. She took the class because it was being taught by Professor Kerr, Angel’s boss. She thought perhaps Angel would be the TA for the class. It would have been fairly neutral ground, a chance for them to see each other without either of them having to make the first move. But Angel wasn’t the TA.
The class started six weeks after her horrible, final fight with Angel. The class itself was only six weeks long and they were quickly approaching the final before Buffy could muster the nerve to linger after class one day.
“Ms. Summers,” Professor Kerr said, looking up from his papers. The class was small and he knew all of the students by name. This student in particular, he had noticed. You couldn’t miss her. She looked so miserable he was afraid she was going to sink into the floor. He knew he wasn’t the most engaging professor on campus, but it did bother him that she seemed so dissatisfied with the class.
“Uh, hi,” she mumbled, flushing. Her expression was pained and she was obviously nervous. “I just ... well, this isn’t really related to class, but I ... I was wondering ...”
He looked at her expectantly, his curiosity now piqued.
She took a deep breath. “I was wondering about one of your teaching assistants,” she said. “Angel Chase. I was just wondering if you could possibly tell me his office hours.”
Everything clicked into place for Professor Kerr and he gave her a small, sad smile. She wasn’t bored by his class. She was nursing a broken heart. So many things made sense now. He sighed. “I’m afraid Angel isn’t my assistant for summer session,” he said.
“Oh,” she said sadly, her cheeks staining with an embarrassed blush. “I see.”
Removing his glasses, Professor Kerr looked at her. If anything, she looked even smaller now, more deflated. “Angel is studying abroad this summer,” he told her. “And I honestly don’t know if he intends to return in the fall.”
She looked at him and for a moment, he thought she was going to cry. But she simply took another deep breath and nodded. “Thank you, Professor,” she said.
***
“You look lonely.”
“I’m not interested,” Angel grunted from his barstool. He didn’t even bother to look at the woman sitting beside him. It didn’t matter if she was supermodel or hobo, he didn’t want to know. It didn’t matter.
“Maybe if you take that handsome face of yours out of your beer-“
“No,” Angel said, cutting her off immediately. “But thanks.”
With a dainty huff, the woman was gone from the stool beside him and he grimaced into his drink. It had been months. Long ones. He refused to count the time just to spite his father with his Happily Ever After, I Fought So Hard For Your Mother speech.
He didn’t think it would be easy, leaving Buffy and moving on with his life, but he had no idea it would be this hard. He took for granted seeing her every day even if just to talk to her or see her smile, or hell, to see her angry. He was already starting to forget was it was like to hear her laugh or how his heart squeezed when he saw tears in her eyes. He was already starting to forget the exact way she smelled. Like all human memory, his was unreliable, hardening half of the past and softening the rest. It was destroying whatever peace of mind he had left. Yesterday he laid in bed for a half hour and tried to remember exactly where her scar stopped and began.
He was wasting his opportunity abroad by being miserable and depressed. He had promised himself he’d really move on, that he’d make the most of life without her and so far he’d only made the most of his drinking skills. He felt guilty for not trying harder. Jenny’s new husband, Rupert Giles, was a kind man with a lot of connections. He helped Angel get an internship, gave him a place to stay and seemed to have a fatherly expectation of him to exceed.
He would soon, he decided. He would tour the countryside and make friends, even find a girlfriend. Yep. Any day now, he’d get right on that. In the meantime, he took another sip of his beer.
“Angel, love. Someone bought you a drink. A pretty girl,” the bartender said in her singing voice. She was one of the few people he actually knew. Having spent most of his free time in the bar, he knew all of the staff. He really liked Drusilla, even if she was a few cards short.
“No thanks, Dru,” he said, looking up at her. She was a beautiful young woman. If he wasn’t knee deep in Buffy memories, he would have slept with her months ago.
“Come on,” the pretty girl in question said, slipping onto the barstool next to him. “It’s an older vintage but I’m sort of hoping it will be a nice reminiscence rather than a bad memory.”
He blinked twice, staring at the dark amber of his beer. He’d been here for quite a few hours. It was entirely possible he was piss drunk enough to start hallucinating. Turning his head, he looked at her.
Buffy.
She smiled slightly at him. He took a deep breath drinking in the sight of her. She was dressed conservatively, wearing a light blue tanktop covered by a matching cardigan. Her flowing skirt reached to her ankles and her painted pink toes peeked out of pair of casual sandals. This wasn’t a hallucination. In a hallucination, she would have been flashing more cleavage. “Buffy,” he finally managed to say.
“Hi, Angel,” she said, feeling like the lamest person on the planet. “I, uh, I bought you a drink,” she said, apparently running with the lameness theme. “I’m old enough to do that here.”
He looked at the glass. If he wasn’t mistaken, it was a nicely aged single malt scotch. He frowned. “Actually, I think I’ve had enough to drink.”
Her face fell. “Oh,” she said, obviously wounded.
“No,” he assured her. “It’s not that I don’t want it, I just ... if I drink that I’m going to have the conversational skills of a carrot.”
“Can we talk?” she asked quietly. He nodded slowly and tried not to fall on his face when he slid off of his bar stool. He followed her to a small table in the corner of the bar. His heart was pounding in his chest as he sat and stared at her face. He was he stared at her lips, trying to make out the faded scar as he tried to clear his head.
“I should have said something,” she said finally when she had his full attention. He seemed to be drinking her in and it was unnerving. “When you walked away that night, I should have said something, anything to keep you with me, but I wasn’t ready. It wasn’t fair of me to expect you to wait and it wasn’t fair of you to expect me to hurry up.” She took a deep breath and it came out shuddering. “I missed you,” she choked, “and before I say anything else I just need to know you’re not going to turn me away.”
“I love you, Buffy,” he rasped back. “You know damn well the only reason I left is because I could never turn you away. I had to leave to keep myself away from you.”
“I love you too, Angel,” she said, allowing the tears to streak down her cheeks. “And I’ve been miserable without you.”
He reached across the table and wrapped his hand around hers, holding it tight. Her fingers tightened around his, trying to convince herself he really was there. She sniffled a few times and then smiled weakly at him. “You have plans tonight?” she asked.
“I’d cancel a date with the Queen for you,” he said and then smiled. “But, no. I didn’t have plans.”
She stood without dropping his hands and he let her pull him to his feet. Trailing behind her, never releasing her hand, he followed her out of the little pub and into the early evening. They walked down the street, hand in hand, silent for a very long time.
Eventually, Buffy spoke. “Are you really thinking of staying here for grad school?”
He looked down at her, the stress of the last few months clearly written on his features. He looked tired, exhausted really. “I haven’t really given it much thought,” he said. “The original plan was just for the summer. I met up with some of my dad’s family here. They’re trying to convince me to stay.”
“Will you?”
He stopped walking, pulling her into his arms. He hugged her close, craning his neck until their foreheads touched. “Not if it means losing you again,” he said. He moved slightly, slanting his lips over hers. She pressed closer against him and kissed him back as passionately as she could. Tears streamed down both of their cheeks as they finally held each other again.
“Let’s go somewhere,” she rasped, clinging tightly to him. Groaning in agreement, he headed toward the flat and then paused. Giles and Jenny were probably home and although he had a guest room all to himself, it wasn’t nearly enough privacy. Turning on his heel, he went in the opposite direction.
“There’s a hotel a couple of blocks down,” he explained, holding her hand tightly. Their clasped hands were shaking and neither were sure if it was one of them or both. They walked silently, fearing any moment the dream would end and they would be alone again.
Buffy found herself struggling not to cry when Angel checked them in as Mr. and Mrs. Angelus Chase. The hotel, or more appropriately, the inn, was small, but it was clean and had a homey feel to it that one would expect to find at a Bed & Breakfast.
Angel turned once the door was closed and pulled her into his arms, attacking her lips with an urgency that was almost desperate. He threaded his fingers through her long, silky blonde locks moaning as her hands moved over his chest and back as if she needed to map him out again and reacquaint herself with the lines of her lover.
Her fingers were shaking as she fumbled with the buttons on his shirt, causing one to pop off and disappear somewhere in their room. She giggled against his mouth as she struggled to get the rest of them off, trying to keep herself from just tugging until all the buttons ricocheted around the room.
He shrugged out of his shirt and then pulled her back against him, sliding his hands under her cardigan and tank top and spreading his hands over her warm back. For a moment he seemed content just to smooth over that warm skin, relishing in the feel of her, but as soon as it began, it was over and he made short work of her sweater and tank top. Her strapless bra found its place on the floor next to her other discarded clothes, but he didn’t witness its fall. Leaning in immediately, he took one painfully erect nipple between his lips and swirled his tongue around it.
He backed her to the bed until she fell back on it and slid up the pillows. Shucking out of his jeans, he followed her quickly, noting that she too had shimmied out of the rest of her clothes. He rested his hips in the natural cradle between her thighs and entered her immediately groaning in thankfulness at her unbelievably tight, wet heat.
“I was miserable without you,” he said, pulling himself away only to slide back in harder, filling and stretching her to his shape again. She wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck and moved with him, haphazardly kissing patches of salty skin.
“I came across the world for you,” she choked back, feeling his talented fingers slide between them to caress her swollen clit in time with his movements. She panted, arching her back and digging her nails into his skin as she neared climax, bucking wildly against him with every thrust. She erupted, crying out his name and screaming in pleasure as he pounded harder, squeezing his eyes closed with the feeling her inner muscles fluttering around him in release. Finally, he let go and joined her crying out her name in exquisite pleasure.
When the world once again righted itself, Angel rolled off her, onto his back, pulling her across his chest. He loved the feel of her, the perfect weight of her body against his. They didn’t speak, the only sound their labored breathing. Absently, he ran his fingers through her hair, scattering it across his chest.
“If you’re going to leave me again, please just kill me now, and save me the trouble of dying a lingering death,” he managed to say. “I saw a letter opener on the desk over there. You could just stab me through the heart.”
She lifted her head from his chest, looking up at him, ashamed at her past actions. “I’m not leaving you,” she said. “Not ever again.”
He cupped her face in his hands, kissing her deeply. “I’m going to hold you to that,” he swore.
“Good,” she said, returning his kiss with all the passion she felt for him.
Despite an afternoon of hard drinking, Angel’s all consuming hunger for Buffy had him hard for her again in moments. She stroked him, loving the feel of his rigid flesh between her fingers. With a devious grin, she straddled him, bracing one hand in the center of his chest while using the other to guide him inside her. Sighing, she sank down on him, pleasure rippling through her at the feel of him clasped so securely within her body.
The pace was more languid this time, more leisurely and playful. She teased him, nipping at his lips, giggling when he growled at the frustratingly slow roll of her hips. “Patience,” she said. “Don’t you have any idea how long I’ve waited for this?”
“Eight months, fifteen days, twenty hours and sixteen minutes,” he said in all seriousness.
She stopped moving and stared down at him in curious wonder. He looked chagrinned and wouldn’t meet her gaze. “That’s how long ago the Alpha Christmas party was,” he mumbled.
Cocking her head to the side, she smiled at him. “You know how long ago it was to the minute? Angel, that’s so sweet,” she cooed.
“It’s not fucking sweet,” he said, looking up at her. “There’s not a godamn sweet thing about it. Each fucking second of it was hell and I’m not letting you get away again.”
“Not trying to escape,” she purred, moving again in slow, deliberate movements. He slid his hands down her back and cupped her ass, grinding harder against her with every stroke. Angel gritted his teeth as she teased him, keeping her movements agonizingly slow, biting at his lips and neck and making sure that each muscle of her body played into making love to him. The exquisite torture of her lovemaking brought them to their peaks together and when they shuddered into completion, it was simultaneous.
***
"So," Jake drawled, slapping his son on the back. "Eight months, fifteen days, twenty hours and sixteen minutes."
Angel stared blankly at his father wearing his best poker face. He'd known from the minute Buffy suggested including that in their vows that his father would never let him live it down. But Jake's teasing grin gave way to something far more serious. "Was she worth all the misery?" he asked.
Looking across the room, Angel looked at Buffy - his wife. She was beautiful in her flowing white dress, a delighted smile on her glossy lips. She chatted with Angel’s mother and grandmother happily, laughing intermittently – no doubt from stories they were telling her about him as a child. She’d never looked so gorgeous and he’d never loved her more.
“You were right, okay?” Angel said, hiding his grin. “Happy now, old man?”
“I’m always right, son. The sooner you realize that, the easier things’ll be,” Jake chuckled, taking a sip of his drink. His face became serious as he wrapped an arm around his son. “I’m glad you got your lass in the end.”
“Me too, Dad,” Angel said, still staring across the room at her.
The DJ they hired, who turned out to be a bit more excited about his job than they’d hoped, announced it was time for the father-daughter dance and Buffy’s head shot up, her eyes widening in horror. Angel cursed under his breath. That fucking moron. He told the DJ no fucking father-daughter dance. Angel was about to head over and beat the man within an inch of his sorry polyester clad life, when Jake stopped him.
“I’ll take care of this,” Jake said. Angel groaned. The last thing he needed was his father in a brawl on his wedding day. Not that he hadn’t intended to do the same thing, but still. He was shocked when Jake set his drink down and casually walked over to Buffy, extending his hand.
“Want to cut a rug?” he asked, grinning. Sniffling, she nodded thankfully and headed out to the dance floor with her father-in-law.
“Thank you,” she said as they started to dance. “I was so embarrassed.”
“What for?” he demanded, spinning her around. “Let me tell you something, girl. You’re a Chase now. We hold our heads up high in this family, you understand?”
“Yeah,” she said, smiling. “I get it.”
When the song ended, Buffy hugged Jake and kissed his cheek. Angel crossed the floor and pulled her into his arms, silently thanking his father. Jake put two fingers to his forehead in a little salute to his son before heading off to find his wife.
“Your family are good people,” Buffy said, cheek to cheek with her husband.
“Yeah, they’ll do,” Angel said, pulling back to smile at her. His kissed her softly and held her firmly in his arms.
“I can’t believe this is real,” Buffy said, sniffling again. “We’re really here, married. You’re all mine and everyone knows it.”
“I can shout it out to the room if you want,” Angel grinned, pulling her off her feet and swinging her around.
“I love you,” she laughed, kissing him.
“I love you too,” Angel answered softly.
The overanxious DJ announced loudly into the microphone at the end of the dance that it was time for the Hokey Pokey and Willow squealed in delight rushing onto the dance floor. She grabbed Buffy and tugged her out with her and then waved in vain at the rest of the room. Her enthusiasm was such that soon a large circle of people had joined in.
Angel hung back and watched standing next to Oz in silence. As the crowd was turning themselves around for the third time, Angel looked at Oz.
“You going to marry her?” Angel asked with a wry grin.
“You think I’m going to let her get away?” Oz answered stone-faced, as always. He didn’t look at Angel once, but followed the movements of his nerdy redhead, ecstatic about the silly song.
***
THE END