Title: Enigmatic

Summary: Post NFA B/A

AN: Written for <lj user=moviequotemini> the quote was “I’m not enigmatic” from The Missing Postman.

 

 

 

Infuriating, she thought. That’s the exactly right word for him. She whirled on her heel, eyes blazing. “I am not enigmatic! Everyone but you gets me, Angel!” she spat.

 

Angel took a step back. “Buffy, I-you said you were cookie dough…I-you thought I was evil again…you were dating The Immortal…what was I supposed to think?”

 

Buffy stared at him a moment before shaking her head and turning back toward the window. “I wasn’t dating The Immortal….Andrew actually received a broken nose, split lip and black eye for telling you that. You didn’t wonder when he showed up with 2 gorgeous girls. I mean its Andrew,” She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “It’s not worth it and I never said you were evil. I said Wolfram and Hart was evil. Giles apparently took leaps and bounds of liberty with that statement.”

 

Angel started pacing the room as he talked. Buffy had always inspired him to pace. “And the cookie dough?” He needed absolute, perfect clarification on this subject.

 

She sighed and slumped against the window sill, bracing her hands with her palms flat against the window pane. “Like I said…you don’t get me…you used to, but at some point…” she trailed off. “It was true…in part. Most of my teenage years were spent with someone and I did need some time to figure out who I was all by myself. But that didn’t mean you had to go incommunicado. A phone call would have been nice, a letter…yeah maybe flowers are asking for a bit much. “

 

“I didn’t want to push,” Angel offered in his defense.

 

“Didn’t want to push?” Buffy asked, her voice pitching higher. She turned to face him again. “That’s what the whole ‘sometimes I do and years if ever’ comment was about. It was supposed to let you know that I was still open to the idea of us! You were supposed to push! Pushing is a way to say I love you and I know all your old, dead poet people would disagree but they’re old and dead and they obviously never knew me!” Her voice pitched higher and louder with each sentence.

 

Angel furrowed his brow and rubbed his temple trying to stave away the headache he was beginning to get. “And it did give me hope that we were still a possibility…sometime in the future, but how does years if ever translate to give me a call? Write me a letter?”

 

Buffy sighed and walked over to a standard hotel issue arm chair. She flopped down into it. “See…this is what I mean. Do you remember when I told you maybe I’d show up at the Bronze and then later when you didn’t we had that argument about how didn’t you realize that maybe meant I’d be there?” At Angel’s slight nod she continued. “That’s what the comment was.”

 

Angel pondered that for a moment, trying to straighten out the tangles that were Buffy’s thoughts. Eventually he shook his head and sat down in the chair next to her. “How is that anything resembling your parting comment?”

 

“It’s-“ she stopped and sighed. This seemed to be the time to go completely confessional. “It’s like…you left me, Angel.”

 

He hesitated and then nodded, not understanding what this rehash of their history meant. The edges of his heart were still tattered with the pain leaving her had wrought. He nodded at her again, indicating she should go on.

 

She waited for him to get it and then threw her hands up in the air. “You left me! That means you have to come back to me! Not the other way around and before you even suggest it, no I can in no way give you any direct orders to come back! That defeats the whole you left me, you have to come back to me theory! And you realize by me telling you this that I’ve defeated the purpose completely and now if you do ever come back to me I will never, ever know if you are coming back to me because you want me back or because you now know I want you back.” She finished her rant all in one breath and folded over her knees, letting her fingers trail into the carpet.

 

There was a long pause, a space where Buffy didn’t breathe and Angel found he had to, and then he scooped her up into his arms and kissed her. It was the kiss that awakened Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and broke the wicked witch’s spell. He released her only when she needed to breathe but caught her chin with his fingers, forcing her to look at him.

 

“You are enigmatic and I love that and every single other thing about you.  I’ve wanted you back from the moment I walked away. Just in case you were wondering,” he whispered.