Title - Ways to Say Goodbye

By - Mariah (symonk@bezeqint.net)

Disclaimer - not mine.

Rating - PG, I think.

Spoilers - to be safe - everything ever.

Pairing - Buffy/Angel in a sense, B/?... hell, even I don't know.

Synopsis - takes place three years or so into the future, that's all for you.

Feedback - yep.

AN - I had a strange urge to write this, don't ask, it usually hits me without reason. It just *might* grow into a series. Depends on my spare time, muse and... your feedback, of course:).

"Dear Angel,

I don’t know why I’m writing this to you, much like I don’t know why I’m doing so many other things in my life nowadays.

It’s been such a long time since I talked to you, it’s going to be three years tomorrow. It’s been even longer since I opened my soul to anyone. I guess I really did forget how to do that. Maybe the entire point in writing this letter is to prove myself I still remember how to, I don’t know. Part of me doesn’t care.

Funny, how I abruptly have to stop because I don’t know what to write. It could have been easier, had we not been spared the luxury of an actual conversation. It being the case, I could at least practice in front of the mirror a few times or do something else equally as corny. The only practice available in my case is pen and paper, but I better not go there because the last time I tried, not only I didn’t manage to come up with anything to write, but I also got my hand aching for days after. Not a big plus in my line of work.

I have to put my pen down for a second, my hand is shaking. Maybe because I haven’t done it for so long, maybe because up until tonight I wouldn’t even contemplate the idea. Maybe because it’s you.

God, Angel. If you only knew for how many things I wish to have been different, if you only had the smallest idea.

Okay, I’m taking a deep breath, fixing my eyes on the paper, *again*. Hopefully this time, it will actually result in something. So I better start, and with a lack of any kind of will to start with the reason to this letter being written in the first place, I’m going to take second best and go with what I’m sure you’d be most interested in – Connor.I’m taking care of him, Angel, have been for the past three years, in fact. I’m not saying I’m in any position to play mom or anything, me being like three, four years older than he might have something to do with that. That and the fact I didn’t even know he existed up until… you know…How could you, Angel? How could you not tell me you had a son? Why, is it because he was conceived at the time you 'weren’t talking to me', or because you didn’t want me to know you fucked (sorry, at the moment, due to lack of a better word) Darla? I don’t even care who his mother is, he’s *your* son, Angel, how could you not let me know he existed??I guess there really is no point wondering about it now, is there. So many things stopped having a *point* anymore, it’s scary.

He didn’t want to come live with me at first, he didn’t want anything to do with me, I suppose he was still thrown, didn’t have time to adjust to… things, much less to new people entering his life. I’ve noticed he’s so much like you (like I remember you anyway, I suppose some things… have changed), he’s reclusive, he prefers to be alone sometimes over anyone's company, he has a hard time trusting people outside the small circle he calls ‘family’. With everything he’s been through, I can understand that. That's why it wasn’t easy for me to gain his trust at first, I wonder where he got his stubbornness from…

But I talked to him, I stayed at the Hyperion for a while, and eventually I semi-convinced him. We agreed on a trial, plain and simple. He’ll come back to Sunnydale with me and live there, for a while, see if it takes. If after that time, he still wants to go back, I won’t stop him.

It was my choice. I could have let him stay with Wes, Gunn, Fred and… Cordelia. After all, they were the ones he referred to as ‘family’, not I, not Giles, Will, Xander, Anya or Dawn. But I didn’t want to leave him there. Also, there was this little voice, this selfish part of me that wanted something of you, the dearest thing in the world to you, to be close to. Maybe I just wanted… I don’t know what I wanted.

So many were against it, at first, you wouldn’t believe. Hell, *I* didn’t. Willow and Xander said I should leave the past behind and let it rest – basically, I "should quit dwelling in the supposed could have been to spare myself additional pain", I shouldn’t have anything to do with Connor *because* he’s your son. Dawn wasn’t openly against, but I don’t think she appreciated the idea of a stranger intruding on our relationship. Cordelia was soundly and flatly against. According to her, I had no right whatsoever to barge into their lives and turn everything upside down. Between you and I, I was ready to punch her nose right through her o-so-righteous face. That’s another reason why I wanted to take Connor away – away from her. After what I found out that they did, that *she* did, I was ready to… well, do things to her I wouldn’t be very proud of later. God, did she lose all common sense, or did she just have to pick Connor of all people?But you know, in the long run, I’m over it. Way behind me now that it’s been three years. I don’t see her and don’t think about her. As for Connor, he barely maintains any connection with either of your friends and as far as girls go, he was seeing a girl named Liz, one of Dawn’s friends from college, but they split a couple of months ago. According to him it was his fault though he never told me what exactly had happened. Too bad, I liked her.

In a nutshell, he’s doing good. I just wanted you to know. His move here only turned out for the best. I think he really found a home after moving to Sunnydale. It’s strange that I feel so close to him, closer than I thought I could, and I sort of think it’s mutual. And what’s even stranger, his staying here somehow go him closer to you. I don’t know if 'better late than never' applies in this scenario, but… maybe it does.

I’ve been trying to be what I thought I could be better than anyone for him – a family, kind of a big sister. He and Dawn get along pretty well, he’s like a big brother for her. Anya, with her still remaining lack of tact, once pointed out the two of them should hitch. Frankly, the idea alone leaves me rolling on the floor in uncontrollable laughter. I mean, could you imagine, your son and my sister?? God, I’m even smiling as I write this down. They’re so different, Angel, like two different worlds colliding.

Then again… weren’t we? It seems ages ago that I last felt your arms around me, Angel… since I kissed you…

But they’re not like us, Angel. Connor was raised by Holtz, and though he is changing and turning more and more into your everyday average guy, there are certain attributes etched so deep inside him time cannot erase. He is way too mature and too down to earth for my sister. And Dawn… she’s *definitely* not his kind of girl. There is no prospect of that kind of relationship for the two of them. Though Dawn did have a crush on him when he first got here, they were never meant to be more than brother and sister. Anyway, she’s dating this guy now, Jason, totally crazy about him. Between you and I, I don’t see it surviving a month.But back to Connor. He’s a good kid, a good man. He feels so much more a part of a family here than he did in LA, and I'm glad. It’s not you, Angel, it was never you, never think that. The two of you never got the chance you deserved. *He* never got the chance *he* deserved. The chance to know a father. His father.

I think the environment here is much lighter than back in LA. For starters, he realized there wasn’t as much weight on his shoulders anymore, that he could share some of the responsibility, I guess no one bothered to show him that back among your friends, or maybe they simply didn't try hard enough. I remember a time when you were here and I know how good it feels, to be able to share that.

At first, he was so remote, spent most of his time on his own, away from everyone, away from me. But he got used to me, faster than I thought he would. Now that he lets me in, we do stuff together, patrol together, we talk, about almost anything… about you. I know I feel comfort in his presence because he’s your son, and though he will never admit it, he feels a certain comfort in mine because in Sunnydale, I’m the strongest (in some aspects, the only) link to what he never got to experience.

I think that through me he learned a side of you no one else showed him, and yeah, I am aware of just how ridiculous it sounds, seeing as I feel like I hadn’t known you at all the last couple of years before you… went away.

He misses you, Angel. I’m saying that because it’s true. Believe it or not, your son misses you. I only wish you were here to see him, the man he’s grown into. You’d be proud. He is proud, of you, he never misses a chance to let anyone know who his father is anymore, Angel, he’s not ashamed of you, he admires you. I don’t know what triggered the change, because learning from what I've assembled about your relationship that should be some change. Maybe it can be completely attributed to given time and space, maybe he just needed the right influence. If that happened to be the case, I’m glad it was me.

Anyway. I think it’s finally time I stopped stalling. It’s hard enough for me to write as it is, but I know I have to. I… have to move on. Maybe not right away, but eventually, and in order to do that, I have to come clean before you first. Let’s just call it tying up certain loose ends that just… can’t remain loose any longer. I can never put you behind me, Angel, renouncing you will be the same as renouncing myself and I can never do that, not even after as long as it’s been. So to the point. I can’t *literally* come clean because… you know, but if my heart’s set on opening up to you one last time, I might as well get on with the program.

I’ve been seeing someone, Angel.

God, I said that. Well, wrote, technically, but you get me. If you could only see the mountain lifted off my chest right about now.

His name is Cole. He’s a detective, who was transferred here from the LAPD six months ago, which is somewhere around the time when we started dating. He knows everything about me, needless to say otherwise we’d never last this long. As for how he knows… well that’s a really irrelevant story, I’m not getting into that. Point is that he does. He’s not *okay* with it, of course, but he manages to put me above his personal issues and I guess that’s what counts in the end of the day. I’ve long given up on hooking up with a great guy who also wouldn’t mind my ability to kick his ass from time to time - no such animal. Not anymore, I should say…

But he adores me. I even think he’ll do anything for me. He loves me. And in a sense… I think I love him, too.

And last night he proposed to me.

Wow, there goes another rock.

The thing is, I think I’m going to say yes. I haven’t given him an answer yet, but I think that’s going to be it. He deserves a yes, and I… I just don’t want to sleep alone anymore. I want to have someone in my life who isn’t going to leave me… or die on me.

It rained last night, Angel, after he’d brought me home from the elite French restaurant he chose to propose in. We pulled by my house and he offered me his umbrella so that I wouldn't get wet. And I declined. I just stepped out of the car and stood in the rain, like I've been doing for the past three years whenever it rained. And though my back was facing him, I know he was looking at me as if I completely lost it. He doesn't understand. He doesn't know.

I never tell anyone, but sometimes I wake up to the sound of the rain in the middle of the night, when it’s pounding on my window. I feel it calling me, and I respond. I always do, I can’t help it. I walk out into the rain and just stand there, I can stand there until it stops and sometimes after. I close my eyes and wrap my arms around myself pretending for them to be yours, I inhale its refreshing smell and reminisce how it scented your skin that night… and I stand. I stand until I’m soaked wet, until the icy water penetrates right through my very bones and it still never seems deep enough. I let the hard drops pour over my skin, and they hurt, Angel, if you only knew how much. They hurt as though the sky is punishing me and I don’t know what for. And they singe, Angel. Did you know raindrops could do that? They burn right into me, consume me with an icy flame until there is nothing left of me to devour. And all this just to remind me your arms aren’t there to protect me from it. And they never will be again.

God, look at me, gees, I didn't even know I got the poetic bug in the family. Guess you still possess the power to uncover in me the strangest things.

Last night’s rain was the last one, Angel. I’m hearing these drops outside as I write. Only this time, I’m not getting out. I can’t hold on to the past anymore. If I do, I’ll die inside. A part of me already is dead. And if I don’t fight to keep the one that’s still there, I’ll fade into nothing. Cole is getting half a person and he’s willing to live with that fact. How often will I get a break like that?

Well, I still have everyone else to break the news to, but the important thing is that you already know. Sort of, I mean.

I will always love you, Angel. I need you to know that, too. And by ‘always’, I mean the one represented by the Claddagh ring you slipped on my finger on my birthday, the one you promised me in your book of poems, and the one I'd promised you before I walked out of the mansion. I mean the ‘always’ when it still had meaning, for us. You remember that always? I know I do.

Well… I guess I’m done. I don’t know what I feel right now. Happiness, relief… release? Mostly, I can’t breathe, my heart is still and I feel like dying. My eyes are overflowing with tears that blur my vision and my hand is shaking so much I can’t write anymore, but I still do. I have to finish this, because there is something very important I still haven’t said. I wish I could hold you, Angel, just one more time, even if just to say goodbye. I wish I could hear the sound of your voice…

I guess I’m not getting even that much though, am I?

Goodbye, my Angel. My love.

Your girl,

Always.

P.S.,

Since there are no postcards to Heaven, I’m just gonna leave this letter lying outside on my windowsill, the same one you always used to climb into my room, once the rain is through. Let the wind carry it wherever it wants to, if I keep it, I'll never bring myself to destroy it and that would mean it'd lie there forever, somewhere in the back of my drawer. And that'd mean I've achieved absolutely nothing.

When I meet you in my dreams tonight, I will tell you everything anyway."