TITLE: Everytime It Rains

AUTHOR: Kelly Rowe

DISCLAIMER: Buffy, Angel and the gang belong to the evil Joss and I only own the characters I make up. In a perfect world however I would own all of them, Buffy and Angel wouldn't have broken up and Riley would never have existed.

RATING: PG

SPOILERS: General (if any)

TIMELINE: Eight Years After Season 5.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Buffy didn't die end of season 5 and Darla never came back, so Angel didn't have a crisis. The song is everytime it rains by Ace of Base. Companion Piece to ‘Complications Of Life.’

Buffy's POV

I'm not sure why I'm here in Los Angeles tonight… the city of Angels. It's ironic since it's had one less Angel for the past eight years. My Angel… I know that I lost the right to call him that a long time ago, but what my head knows and my heart feels are two entirely different things. I remember when we received the news so vividly it's like it just happened.

Someone called Gunn rang Giles and told him of Cordelia, Wesley and Angel's deaths. After Giles told all of us Scoobies, I became inconsolable. I just sat there rocking on the couch, my knees to my chest, repeating, "It can't be true. I can still feel him." But it was…

So here I am eight years later sitting in this little out of the way karaoke bar in LA, waiting for my turn to sing… so I can find my fate. I've already been here for an hour and every time it's supposed to be my turn, I chicken out… not really wanting to what my future, my life's to be without him.

The truth is I didn't want to come here, but they made me. I guess they were right too… I mean life has gone on for everyone but me. They've married, had children, moved on with their lives and all while I sit in my lonely little apartment and dream of my Angel. Willow has been telling me for years that he's dead and it's time to move on to the living… try as might I cannot get her, or any of them to understand… to me Angel's not dead, he's simply left me all over again.

I've never fully recovered from the first two times he did that, so this time I know I'm just never going to get over it… a giant and vital part of me is missing and I'll never be whole, not without him, not until he comes back to me. Oh, I know that'll never happen, but it's the only thing that keeps me going, keeps me alive. All I know is that in my heart and soul I feel that he's alive and that knowledge gives me hope.

Finally I can put this off no longer, I need to know my fate… whether I am to live or to die. I need to know so that I can move on… not romantically; I tried that once with Riley and now I know for certain the only man for me ever is Angel.

I need to be able to move on with my so-called life, to escape my little rut I've been in for eight years and be the Buffy I used to be once upon a time… the Buffy I haven't been in a very long time. I make my way up to the stage, unsure just why this Anagogic demon requires people or demons to sing badly in order to tell them anything. Frankly the explanation is beyond me and then it dawns on me… I don't actually care, all I want to do is get it over with and find out. I pick up the mike, take a deep nervous breath as the music starts and I await my cue.

//I see dark clouds out my window

I know the storm is coming any minute

And the thunder just confirms my fears

And I know the tears are in there

I'll be crying unable to stop

Look here comes the very first drop//

//Cuz everytime it rains

I fall to pieces

So many memories the rain releases

I feel you… I taste you

I cannot forget

Everytime it rains… I get wet//

Halfway through this infernal song I realised how stupid I was to have chosen it. It had Angel missage and depression written all over it and not only that it mentioned rain, which ever since my seventeenth birthday has pretty much always caused me to cry.

For the rest of the song, I have to struggle not to just breakdown and cry, give into the tears I so badly want to shed. By the time I finish I feel as though my eyes are going to explode from the pressure of my unshed tears that are just dying to leak out. I climb down from the stage and am met by the host, he doesn't even say a word, he just hands me a slip of paper and walks away. I read what it says and I am shocked. 'Hyperion Hotel'

Angel's old home? What did that have to do with my future? It had been abandoned for the past eight years, since Gunn left LA to go to New York and begin again. I decided to go there… I mean the host wouldn't send me there unless it was important to my future would he? Also I was curious about what could possibly be there… would it mean life or death to me? Or would it be with my luck, Spike and another one of his Buffy Bots?

Fifteen minutes later I stood outside the old building and spotted a light and a figure in one of the upstairs windows. I figure that it must be kids taking shelter from the worsening weather. I am about to leave, head back to Sunnydale with my tail tucked firmly between my legs and forget whatever may lie between these walls, when it begins to rain.

Not a light drizzle, but a full on pelting rain, with no relief or shelter outside, I run for the hotel and go inside. It feels strange to be back in here again, the last time was for their funerals. I sit down on the old couch in the lobby and shake with cold. As I look around I begin to realise that being here with all of the tangible reminders of Angel's life… a life he'd had without me… just makes the pain more real. I can't take it, I have to leave this place and not come back… it’s just way too painful, and I even begin to think that I can feel him.

I was getting up to leave when I hear it, his voice and I realise now that I am insane. I can't hear the voice of a dead person it's impossible. I spin around and see a shadowy figure standing on the stairs. "Angel?" I ask cautiously, praying it was he this time and not some hallucination.

Then the figure said my name again and feeling braver than I had in years I moved towards it. I stop a short distance away and try to see into the shadows and fail. As if he knew what I was trying to do, he moved into the light and I gasp in shock. It was Angel… and yet it wasn't, he was different and the reason why hit me, he must have received his shanshu. It was the only way to explain the fact he was obviously older and scarred… not that matters to me.

At my gasp he tries to move away from me, but I can't let him, so I throw my arms around him and vow never to let him go again. He stilled in shock and eventually tries to hug me back, but he's uncomfortable with it. I look into his eyes and gently stroke his face, "I missed you."

He seems shocked by my confession, but he was even more shocked when I kiss him. The truth is right now I don't care what has happened, where's he's been or even how he's her and alive. All I care about is that he's here with me… where he belongs.

THE END