Title – Fear

By - Mariah (symonk@bezeqint.net)

Disclaimer - not mine.

Distribution - my B/A fanfic site (http://www.withtheprettiness.com/evennow) and everyone with permission. Ask me first.

Rating - PG

Spoilers - everything ever.

Pairing - Buffy/Angel.

Synopsis – there's bad in every good.

Feedback - always.

AN – Buffy's POV.

"How are you?" I quietly ask Angel, though I don't know whether he's asleep or not. I'm too spent to do as much as lift my head from his chest and look at him. I don't know what sort of point I'm trying to make with this question, at least because on one hand it seems too much out of place at the moment, but on the other hand, I feel the strangest need to ask it.

For a moment, he doesn't say anything at all and the lack of answer disturbs me more than I am willing to admit even to myself, but then, "I think... that I had to do that."

I'm not sure he's making much sense even to himself, but I let out a small breath of release as I note, "I think I know what you mean."

He laughs shortly, and his laughter is so true and open I fall in love with him again just because of it. And then he says the possibly last thing I've been expecting, "No... I don't mean that. Although that, too," he notes, and I can hear the impish smirk in his voice before it sobers again. "I mean... I had to do it." He stops at that, while I expect him to proceed with some more acceptable explanation, only to find out that he can't, because he doesn't have one. Under normal circumstances, it shouldn't scare me, but given the fragility of recent events, it does, and not the possibility of him knowing more than I do, but him *not* knowing.

"Angel," I push myself up and look at him. I have to smile when I find his eyes closed though I know by now he's fully awake. Well, mostly awake, to be exact. I place a hand on his face and tenderly brush it over his cheek and down to his neck, where he captures it in his, lacing our fingers together.

"Yeah," he sighs and his eyes wearily flutter open.

"You're not planning on... walking away any time soon or, turning back time or... dying, or... anything remotely similar to any of the above, right?" I almost expect him to laugh at my question.

And he almost does. Almost. "Not any time soon," he whispers, as he places his finger under my chin and draws my lips up for a soft kiss.

And all I want to do is lose myself again, lose myself in that kiss, lose myself in him, in us. I want to forget there is anything else in the world we need to worry about, but I apparently developed a too strong grasp at reality the past three years to allow myself to be swayed into that bubble. While my lips tenderly caress his, my thoughts are drifting elsewhere, in the very moment I crave for them to just stay put for once, but something in his kiss tells me his are doing the exact same thing. I think of the inexplicable mystery surrounding his return, I think of Connor, the issue of whom is still hanging in the air, and I also think of us. What is going to happen to us now? We never had *everything*, we were never allowed to, and now that we seem to...

"Angel?" I reluctantly break the kiss and find his eyes. I note with an inner smile even after everything that happened, they're still dimmed with the faint haze of intoxication after he kisses me, just moments before the effect of the kiss completely wears of. I wonder if mine are, too. "You think we did the right thing?" When I'm convinced his eyes tell me he knows exactly what I'm talking about, I go on, "I-I mean, we..." I'm suddenly choked by my own words and I pull out of his arms, wrapping the sheet around my chest as I move back to the edge of the bed. His confused gaze follows me in wonder and I don't even want to begin to guess what he's thinking right now because it hurts too much. Instead I try to get myself back together and make my mind work properly.

"What I'm trying to say is... we rushed back into things, I-I think." I throw one glance at him and don't dare to look at him any further. I clutch my fingers tightly around the fabric of the sheet and as I draw in enough air to spill everything I've got packed inside of me, I try to focus on that only. "Just yesterday... I still thought you were... you weren't here, you were gone. *Yesterday*, Angel. I was trying, doing my best to build some resemblance to normal life after I thought I lost *every* chance of that. And you were gone!" I sharply turn to look at him and I think I scared him with my abrupt outburst, but I'm way past the point of caring, I'm scaring myself so much more. I suddenly realize I'm crying and I recognize the familiar look in his soft brown eyes when all he wants to do is wrap his arms around me and comfort me till everything goes away. But he stays still.

Now I finally know how come I never had a nervous outbreak about the whole situation before. I was waiting for now... "Do you realize I haven't even *started* processing everything that's happened yet? I couldn't, I wasn't given the time to, I couldn't break myself away from you for one unnecessary *minute*, because I was so afraid you'd disappear the same way you showed up! You just... show, and suddenly I turn my back on everything I knew, everything I've been striving so hard to create, to make sense, and it's all for you, because I can't imagine myself acting any differently!" I take a moment to catch my breath and I stare at him with pained tearful eyes, watching as the familiar shades of guilt and heartache naturally steal their way into his and I ask myself why couldn't I just shut up and leave things as they were. What is wrong with me?!

"I love you more than anything, Angel. I will *do* anything to make us work, but we never do, and I'm so scared to lose you again, and I'll always be scared because nothing in this world has ever given me a single reason not to. And in a world where nothing exists on its own, where everything has a secret meaning, a hidden reason... everything seems to be failing us, and you *always* slip away from me one way or another." I wipe the tears stinging my cheeks with the back of my hand and when I reach for his, he pulls it back. I swallow hard and clasp my hand into fist, choosing not to say anything in response to his reaction.

"I prayed for countless times for just one *moment* with you," I say quietly, keeping my eyes on the floor instead of his, "just to forget for one second you weren't here, but these so-called Powers seemed to be too powerless to grant me that much. And when I'm *this* close to putting my life back on some fake track, they send you back to me, for millions of moments, and I don't *know* what to make of it, no one will tell me why..."

"Do you want me to go?"

My heart skips in my chest as he asks this question and I'm trying to remember a time when he sounded more lost and forlorn and I can't. And the same moment I realize just how much this is a question only Angel would ask. I don't say anything though I know he's probably waiting for me to.

"Do you want to go back to him? To 'normal'?" he emphasizes the last word and I know why, and the only response he seems to receive from me is silence. I note the slight wavering in his voice as he asks that, but at the same time, he holds it firm and immutable. "You think I can't give you that, that... he's better for you than I am?"

"No," without looking at him, I inaudibly utter this one word and there are so many tears in it I doubt he understands it. But he does. And it's true. And he knows it. But I think now *he* is the one that's way past the point of caring.

"Good," his voice is so much stronger and clearer now. "Because I'm not going to let you."

I look up at him, but his resolute expression doesn't soften for a bit, nor does he move.

"When I grabbed you and kissed you yesterday, I had a very little idea of what exactly I was doing and why. In fact, I had none. I was acting on pure instinct and it told me I was dong the right thing to do, *at the time*. Apparently, you didn't think so."

His words slam into my face with such strength, I turn to look away from him. I bring a hand to my chest, laying it atop my pounding heart and pressing it hard against it, trying to sooth the throbbing. Why is it that in the time I want him so much to hold me, he doesn't? What have I done?

Though I seem to be shut to everything, I vaguely hear him speak again and it doesn't seem he's aware at all of what his words do to me. Was I aware of what mine did to him? "I knew long before I came to Sunnydale about Cole and *you*, but I never dared to intrude on what you had here, no matter how much it hurt me, every second away from you. I'm *still* not sure I did the right thing, I wasn't when I came, but I didn't *care*. Because I knew I would find here what I've been looking for all my life." He pauses for a moment to steadily look at me and almost reduces his voice to a mere whisper when he says, "I remembered how you loved me, when I didn't remember so many other things. I remembered you, how you smiled, how you cried, I remembered the stupidest and simplest things about you and I reached a breaking point when *nothing* would stand in my way to you, not uncertainty, not friendship, nothing."

He stops again and something in that silence tells me he either doesn't know how to proceed or doesn't want to. "I can't give you all the answers, I told you that once before. I don't know everything about myself yet, but I know you, and I love you, more than words can say. But I don't know if that's enough for you anymore because you seem to want more. I came here with nothing but a memory, hoping to find completeness in you. I was looking for the end of my journey because all my *life* seems to have led me to you. I understand that you're scared, and confused, but believe me, you're not nearly as confused as I am."

He reaches for his boxers and pulls them on under the covers. Then he sits up, and steadily continues to dress. My eyes widen as the entire meaning of what he's doing rapidly drowns on me. I want to stop him, but instead, I get up and take a couple of steps back from the bed we just made love in.

"If space is what you want, I'll give it to you." He picks up his shirt from the floor, which probably still has my scent on it. As he puts it on, I catch a glimpse of shimmering tears in his eyes, but that's as much as he lets slip past his guard for me to detect. "Take time, take space..." he says, and although he doesn't look at me, his voice is steady, completely negating everything he's feeling, "take as much as you need, if you think you're better alone. I know I'm not, and I'm not giving up. So when you're ready to accept me, and this... *you* find me." Without bothering to button up the shirt, he grabs his leather jacket and brushes past me on his way to the door.

"Please don't do this," I whisper pleadingly, but as I look up at him all my tearful eyes find is his back facing me.

He stops, leaning with one hand on the doorframe, and though I still can't let out a single word to make him stay, I pray to whatever is listening that he's going to read my thoughts. "Tell my son I'll contact him later," he says quietly, and though it's not at all what I was expecting to hear, he stresses the importance of it in his eyes by firmly adding, "*Tell* him that. I don't want him to think I walked out on him again." And then he's gone.

The only thing that seems to possess the ability to snap me out of my state of trance is the slamming of the door downstairs and before I'm able to think anything through at all, my hands are grabbing clothes from all possible corners of the room, not noticing what it is I'm putting on as long as it fits the right places. Within a second I'm out the front door, not even grasping I'm still barefoot. All I can think of is that I'm already too late.

THE END