Buffy sat wearily on her bed, and stared around her bedroom. Her eyes lighted on Mr Gordo, her small stuffed pig, and she retrieved him from the armchair, cuddling the soft fake fur to the side of her face. Sometimes she thought she could still smell Angel’s scent on the toy, and she remembered how he’d fiddled with it when she’d caught him in her bedroom that time.
‘Spending quality time with Mr Gordo?’ she’d asked him.
She smiled as she remembered the totally baffled look he’d given her. She glanced at the window, his usual means of entry to her room – and hers, for the first couple of years after she’d moved here. She and Angel had spent many a long time on either side of that sill, in serious kissage. It all seemed so long ago. It was so long ago.
Outside, the wind tugged at the trees and a small branch tapped unrhythmically at the shingle below her window. A storm was brewing, and she’d been glad to get home. Walking through Rest Haven cemetery earlier, her mind had been filled with snatches of conversation shared with Angel on previous patrols there, and she’d felt lonely and had allowed herself to miss his company. It was something she didn’t do very often, because it hurt, but tonight she needed to wallow in memory to remind herself that she had been loved, had known love – real love. She needed to make the distinction, because the situation with Spike was getting out of hand.
Buffy sighed, and pushed recent memories out of her head. She didn’t want to think about Spike, or the strange morbid attraction they seemed to have developed for each other. She didn’t want to lie awake all night, trying to make sense of this new life she’d been pulled into. She placed Mr Gordo on her pillow while she undressed, and pulled him close to her as she climbed under the duvet and closed her eyes.
She knew that by focusing her thoughts on Angel – his face, his voice, his strong loving arms around her – she would dream of him. And she really needed that escape, a few quiet hours spent in his company, even if it was all in her mind. Sometimes she needed it so badly, she wished she could sleep forever, and stay in her dream world where she and Angel were together and everything was alright.

As she waited for sleep to claim her, Buffy remembered other dreams she’d had of Angel. Strange dreams, and sometimes sad ones. She deliberately excluded the frightening prophetic ones that had involved his death. She remembered dreaming of him when she’d been in LA, after she’d sent him to hell – in her dream she’d been on a beach, and he’d walked up behind her and encircled her with his arms. At that time, she’d woken up in tears, guilty and mourning, but the dream itself had been soft and warm, like his embrace.
‘I’ll never leave you,’ he’d said in the dream, ‘not even if you kill me.’
It had made her heart ache, but her heart held his memory and she was glad that it ached – the dull pain was her constant reminder of him, and of their love for each other – and it helped her convince herself that he’d understood why she’d done what she’d done, even if she sometimes hadn’t. Those were the dreams she enjoyed, when it was just the two of them, away from the hell of everyday living.
Buffy sighed, and smiled sleepily. She’d had another dream of meeting him near the beach on a sunny day, and then they’d gone back to his apartment under the old offices he used to have. They’d spent the day together, intimately, and then they’d gone fighting demons together, and it had all felt so natural. It had been a vivid dream, very cohesive, not fragmented and slightly odd like most dreams are. It had felt real, and it made her long for ice cream whenever she remembered it.
“Cookie dough fudge mint chip,” she murmured, nuzzling her nose into Mr Gordo.
She’d wanted that dream to last forever.
‘We’ll make another just like it,’ he’d said in their dream bed, ‘tomorrow.’
Buffy wished she’d had a tape recorder, to record his voice whenever they’d talked, so she could play it back now while she dozed. In the rare quiet moments of her life, she missed his voice, deep and velvety and soothing. It amused her now that, in the beginning, his words had annoyed her – he’d always talked in riddles, never coming to the point, or so it seemed to her at the time. Now she’d give anything to hear him talk complete gibberish if he wanted to, just so long as his voice lilted into her ears once more.
She sniffed her toy pig, clinging to the faintest trace of Angel scent, and drifted off to sleep.

‘There you are,’ she sighed, flinging her arms around his neck. ‘I thought you’d never get here.’
‘Busy night,’ Angel explained, hugging her tightly to him as their lips met.
‘I miss you,’ the slayer breathed as they finally stepped apart.
Angel nodded, and looked down into her face. Her eyes searched his, drinking in his features, and he did the same. Then they started to walk, hand in hand, along a deserted street.
‘I miss you too,’ the vampire admitted. ‘Not sure if these dreams make that better, or worse.’
With a sharp intake of breath, she stopped and turned to him.
‘Don’t they make it better?’ she asked earnestly, tears welling in her eyes. ‘Don’t they make things more bearable? Give you something to look forward to?’
‘Don’t you love me anymore?’ she thought.
Angel smiled sadly at her.
‘Of course they do,’ he told her softly. ‘It’s just that it gets harder to wake up, cos it keeps reminding me what I’m missing.’
Buffy nodded, and started to cry. She closed her eyes as he pulled her into her arms, and clung desperately to him as he stroked her hair.
‘Shhhhhhh,’ he breathed softly. ‘Don’t cry. I just meant that it’s hard to do the everyday stuff when I’d rather be here with you.’
‘Me too,’ Buffy said miserably. ‘Sometimes I just don’t ever want to wake up.’ She opened her eyes and looked at him again. ‘You know?’
‘I know,’ he said, tenderly wiping her cheek with his thumb.
He leaned over and kissed her, so passionately and full of longing that it took her breath away. As they kissed, bodies tingling with desire, Buffy vaguely realised that they’d left the street and were now in bed. It wasn’t hers, so she assumed it was Angel’s, at the hotel where he now lived and worked.
Reluctantly, she pulled away, and reached up to touch his face with her palm.
‘I love you, Angel,’ she told him, tears forgotten as she remembered the freedom they could enjoy in their dream world. No demons, no Hellmouth, no curse.
‘I love you,’ he echoed hoarsely. ‘Let’s just make the most of what we have. Close your eyes.’