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Epilogue
“There you are, Buffy,” said Angel as he found her sipping a glass of Chardonnay on the roof of the DH Group offices. She was looking out over the valley with the sun low and orange on the horizon, and she seemed profoundly content.He came up behind her and put his arms around her.
“Ooh, I like that,” she said, purring the words. “I can understand what she sees in you. This could be interesting, sort of a menage a trois with just two.”
Angel backed away irritably.
“Lillith,” he said coldly.
She turned to him and smiled mischievously. “No need to stop on my account. Buffy’s taking a little siesta, decided to let me sit in the front seat for awhile.”
Angel sighed and shook his head. “I’m not sure I’m ever going to get used to this.”
“It’s just temporary until Flynn lightens up and gets me out of here. In the meantime, Buffy’s been kind enough to let me come out and play now and then. I think I’d go nuts otherwise.”
“Just don’t get any ideas about making it permanent,” said Angel sharply.
Lillith chuckled. “Oh, my dear man. You just don’t get it, do you? I’d never do anything to hurt her. Never. We’re so much a part of each other now that the thought of hurting her or, God forbid, losing her, is simply inconceivable to me. It would be pure masochism. And when Flynn finally lets me out, she’ll still be a part of me.”
She put a hand over her heart, then pointed to her head. “Here, and here. Always. But I don’t have to tell you that, do I Angel? You already understand. You understand it better than anyone.”
Angel choked back sudden emotion, and said, “Yeah, I do. You’ve changed, Lillith.”
“She’ll do that to a person, I’m given to understand.”
The two of them looked at one another for a long moment, connecting in some unfathomable way over a woman whose life entwined through theirs so inextricably, so fundamentally, that neither was complete without her.
Then something changed in Lillith’s eyes, and Angel knew his wife was back.
Buffy shook her head a little to clear it. “Whoa. That was sure interesting.”
“I guess that would be a word for it,” agreed Angel. “It is you, right?”
“Yeah, me. The Buffy Summers, Slayer me,” said Buffy. She rolled her eyes, “That woman has the kinkiest mind, Angel. You watch yourself around her.”
Angel laughed. “Relax. It’s what’s inside you that makes you the woman I love. I don’t love her in your body. I love you in your body. Or you in her body. Or whatever the hell combination gives me the woman I fell in love with. And if anybody heard that, they’d lock me in a soft room and throw away the key.”
“Remind me to have a long talk with Flynn about the duration of this little arrangement,” said Buffy, her eyes sparkling with humor.
Then they were silent for a time, enjoying the quiet and each other’s presence amid the fading light of day.
“I guess I was wrong,” said Buffy finally, as she settled comfortably into Angel’s embrace. “Sometimes, happy endings do come true.”
“I hope this one lasts,” said Angel.
She twisted in his arms to look up at him. To see him now, she’d never know that fifteen years had passed for him, or seventy five for her. If not for the troublesome persistence of memory, she really could believe it had all been a bad dream.
“It’ll last,” she said dreamily, looking back out across the valley to the small crimson flare of the fading sun behind the low, distant mountains.
“You sound so certain.”
She smiled and closed her eyes, feeling the gentle evening breeze, feeling Angel’s strength and warmth. It was all so profoundly peaceful, a precious and beautiful lull in a hundred and seven year storm, and she never wanted it to end.
“I am certain,” she said. “Just for this one moment, I’m as certain as I could ever be about anything.”
“And what about the next moment?”
She rested her head on his chest and sighed, every fear and uncertainty forgotten, her life an unwritten book waiting for the first stroke of the pen.
“There is no next moment, Angel,” she said softly. “Not right now. Not ever.”
— — —
All I want is a place in the sun
All the trouble I’ve made
I carry with me to the grave
Just like I carry you, forever and today
Just like I carry you, today and forever– Course of Empire, Ride the Static
End