Title: Jasmine

Author: Jeanny

Rating: PG

Feedback: Please. jeannygrrl@hotmail.com

Spoilers: Season 3 Through Graduation Day

Distribution: I don't mind, just credit me and let me know where it's going.

Summary: Angel is leaving Sunnydale and Buffy. Really. He means it this time.

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all the characters that appear on the show are the exclusive property of Joss Whedon, Fox, Mutant Enemy, Inc., UPN and any one else with a legal binding claim to the shows and/or characters. No copyright infringement is intended.

********

This is his favorite of all the cemeteries in Sunnydale. Partially because it is hers as well, a fact that he knows and cherishes like all the other little things he knows about her, but that's not the only reason. For while they share the strangeness of even having a favorite graveyard, even more so a fondness for this particular park, it's always been for completely different reasons. She likes the layout: easy sight lines here, fewer mausoleums. He likes it because it is beautiful. Because she is in it often, making it even more beautiful. As it is right now, as he trails behind her in the shadows. Not stalking, because he wouldn't do that. Just watching her, and admiring the scenic beauty. Indulging in one very last moment with her. Indulging in unnecessary breath so that he can enjoy the other reason he likes it here. The jasmine.

He savors the sweetness that wafts around them both, something they're sharing even if one of them is unaware. There are moments he wonders if God didn't make these flowers for lost souls like himself, some kind of small consolation for the sunlight lost. Then he remembers that he is forsaken, that there are no others like himself. No other souls trapped in the darkness.

Except for Buffy. No, she's not trapped in the same way, thank God, but still...he knows he'll always share the darkness with her. He watches her move softly through the night and sighs soundlessly. His love, the girl who'd stirred his heart like the breeze stirs these nocturnal blooms, making everything around him infinitely sweeter, more wonderful, more...beautiful. He always knew it couldn't last, that theirs was an ephemeral perfection. A part of his curse so purely on target he could believe that the Kalderash had known things would come to pass this way.

She pauses, straightening, tensing so slightly that he shouldn't even be able to tell from this distance but of course he can, and without thinking he steps further back into the blackness that surrounds him, mentally lamenting the lack of mausoleums to hide behind. She can't know he's here. He's not supposed to be. In fact, he's not here, not really. At least, that's what he keeps telling himself. The mansion is abandoned, the few things he's got worth taking loaded into his car to take to Los Angeles. Waiting for him, just as they've been every night for a couple of weeks. He's all ready. He's leaving, tonight...as soon as he finishes not-stalking his ex through yet another graveyard on yet another sweetly scented night. He just needs this. To see her, to be with her just once more, even if she can't know. And then it's over. He's leaving Sunnydale. Really.

She's still staring in his direction, and his resolve falters...

Buffy stares into the darkness, her heart beating a bit faster. She could have sworn...but it seemed now it had merely been the wind. She tries to take a deep calming breath, nearly choking on a sob. She blames it on the cloying air. She's starting to hate this place. Without Angel it's lost its appeal, like so many other things in her life. Sometimes it seems like all she once loved now only brought her pain. That everything sweet only made her bitter, especially this scent in the air. It reminds her of him too much. She knows he loved it here. That he loved these damned flowers.

That he loved her.

But he'd left anyway.

She turns sharply on her heel and soldiers on, wiping the wetness from her cheek with the back of her hand. Unaware of the vampire who moments later walks morosely into the night toward a car packed with meager possessions, a car waiting to take him to a new life or unlife or whatever he should call the lonely days and nights ahead. Unaware that if she'd lingered just a moment more he would have slipped out of the shadows. That once she had seen him he'd never have had the strength to leave her. The allure of the moonlight and the jasmine and the girl would have been too much.

But she didn't see. Just as well, Angel decides, as he's leaving.

Tonight.

He really means it this time.

*********

The End.