Title: Broken Sunsets

Rated: PG-13

Summary: Buffy and Angel face tragedy and the death of dreams together. AU everyone is human.

 

 

            “I’m sorry, Mr.  McSpadden, there was nothing we could. Your wife is going to be fine, but the baby…” the doctor trailed off.

 

            Angel nodded and pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing the tears back. “Thank you,” he said roughly. He stood inside the waiting room a moment, gathering himself. He couldn’t go in and see her unless he was strong. She was going to need him to be strong. He had her, she was all he needed. It wasn’t important that they’d lost their baby.

 

            Angel forced himself to smile. It felt fake and wooden even to him.  He pushed open the hospital room door. It always left him broken to see her like this.  She looked so tiny and fragile lying in the hospital bed. She stared out the window, refusing to look at him.  He crawled in the narrow bed behind her and pulled her body flush with his.

 

            “The doctor says you’re going to be fine,” he said and instantly regretted. She wasn’t fine. She’d lost their baby, again.  He pulled her hair back from her face and saw the tear tracks still fresh on her cheeks. Her green-gray eyes were moist with tears unshed. He sighed into the nape of her neck, kissed it and pulled her closer, wrapping his arms tight around her. They’d been in this very place before.

 

            “Angel,” she started and couldn’t finish.

 

            “Shhh, its okay, Buffy. You’re going to be alright, that’s what’s important,” he whispered.

 

            She shook her head. “It’s not okay, our baby…I thought it was going to be okay this time. I bought a teddy bear,” she broke off in a quiet sob.

 

            His entire body ached for her. He wanted to curl into a ball against the pain. He didn’t know she’d bought anything for their baby. After the first time they’d stopped buying baby clothes or toys. It hurt too much afterwards to see the items lying around. Buffy stuffed them in a cabinet but every once in a while she’d happen upon them and end up in tears. Eventually he’d thrown all the tiny little baby things in the dumpster; he didn’t have the heart to take them back to the store.

 

            “I thought-I thought after the first trimester it was safe,” she said.

 

            The tears he’d been suffocating seeped out. They made long, wet tracks down his cheeks and pooled on her shoulder.

           

            “The doctor wants me to go on birth control,” she said.

 

            Angel nodded and his breath hitched with tears. He couldn’t stand to see her broken anymore. He was afraid one of these days she’d stay broken or he’d lose her for good. His life without Buffy was not something he could even begin to imagine.  It was for the best that they didn’t try to have children anymore, but it hurt. 

 

            “Can we get out of here?” She asked.

 

            “Buffy, the doctor wants-” he started.

 

            “Angel, I’ve done this before, five times before. I know how to take of myself; you know how to take care of me after this. Please take me away from here,” she interrupted.

 

            He took a deep breath. He couldn’t deny her anything when she sounded so lost. He’d take her away from this hell and he’d find her, he’d help her find herself again.

           

            “Home?” He asked.

 

            She shook her head. “No, but anywhere else that’s not here.”

 

*

 

            He borrowed the beach house from his little brother’s fiancée. It was the perfect place for them to get away from reality for a little while.  He poured two glasses of red wine, she could have it now. The thought sobered him even more. Buffy was curled up in a hammock on the porch, watching the sun set into the ocean. She looked like a little girl wrapped in a blanket even though it wasn’t cold.  He sat down in a chair beside her and handed her a glass of wine.

 

            They were silent for a little while. They had used up all the words that one would say in this situation and to say them over and over again hurt too much. Angel took Buffy’s hand in his, glided his thumb over her knuckles. She had tiny, delicate hands. When they’d first met she used to paint her nails the most garish colors. She’d grown up, seen so much, felt so much since then. Her nails were bare now, clipped short and neat.

 

            “I want a divorce,” she said.

 

            Angel’s head snapped up, he dropped her hand. “What?”

 

            “You heard me. I want a divorce,” she said quietly, never taking her eyes off the tide rolling.

 

            “Buffy, I love you-what? Where is this coming from?” He asked.

 

            “I know, I love you too,” she said.

 

            “Okay, then why?” He asked.

 

            She took a deep breath. He could see the shine of tears in her eyes and she still refused to look at him.

 

            “Spike called a few weeks ago. He was in town with his band. He’d take me back. He never wanted me to break up with him in the first place. He even said he still loves me. He doesn’t want children. I know how important family is to you, Angel,” she said.

 

            Angel sighed so deeply it seemed to come from his very soul. That’s what all this was about, not Spike. He was just an ex boyfriend of Buffy’s, a phase she had gone through she said. Angel was from a large Irish Catholic family. He had twelve brothers and sisters. Thirteen children were a bit much, but he wanted four or five at least. He’d been very up front about it with Buffy from the beginning. He loved being a part of a big family and he wanted that himself. Buffy wanted to have children as much as he did. They had started trying for a baby from the moment they got married. Buffy had her first miscarriage five months later; since then there had been a string of them, each one taking more of a toll on her then the last.

 

            “Apparently I haven’t made it very clear how important you are to me. I am in love with you, madly, deeply, crazy in love with you,” Angel said.

 

            She sighed. “Your sister told me Cordelia has three kids. One is a set of twins,” she said.

 

            Angel pinched the bridge of his nose. Cordelia was his ex-fiancée. He had been engaged to her when he’d met Buffy and fallen head over heels at first sight. He’d broken up with Cordelia just days later.  Angel reached out and grabbed Buffy’s chin. He turned her face to look at him.

 

            “I don’t love Cordelia. I never did. I want to have children, with you and only you,” he said.

 

            “What if I can’t? Every time I miscarry it gets harder to get pregnant again,” Buffy said.

 

            Angel glanced out at the ocean for a moment. Having children with Buffy, seeing her pregnant with his child, those were dreams that had been dying since the first miscarriage. As he watched the sun sink into the ocean, the sky was blanketed with night and his dreams took their last breath.

 

            “We’ll adopt,” he said.

 

            Her bottom lip quivered. “I want a baby with your eyes and your hair. I want a little boy that broods and a little girl with that particular half grin of yours.”

 

            He crawled gracefully into the hammock with her, pulling her almost on top of him. He wrapped his arms around her and buried his nose in the crown of her head. He loved this woman more then anything else in this life or the next. There had never been a doubt in his mind from the moment he’d laid eyes on her that she was his soul’s mate.

 

            “And I want you. No matter what kind of sacrifices I have to make, they’re worth it to get to spend the rest of my life with you,” he said.

 

            She sniffled and shook her head. “No, think about it, Angel. You could have a dozen babies with any other woman in the world.”

 

            “That’s the problem. I only want you,” he whispered.

 

            They both fell silent, sipping at their wine and watching the ocean

 

            “The silver iterance!---only minding, Dear,To love me also in silence with thy soul,” Angel whispered in her ear.

 

            He was rewarded with a slight smile from Buffy. His entire literature degree was worth that one smile. He often quoted poetry to her.

 

            “Elizabeth Barrett Browning?” She asked.

 

            He nodded. “Sonnets from the Portuguese, Say it over again, and yet once over again,” he confirmed.

 

            “Are you sure, Angel? Because I’ll-” she started.

 

            He knew she wasn’t talking about the poem. “Shhh, I want my life to be with you,” he said.