Title: Goodbyes

Fandom: Ats

Summary: Post NFA. Angel has to say goodbye

Rating PG

AN: Written for 15minuteficlets a picture challenge of this tree on Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco.

 

 

The pale, crescent moon seemed to burn everything into negative. The fog filled the clearing, suspending him in that negative space. He stood underneath the tree, thinking that the darkness, the loneliness very matched his mood. His hands were tucked into his pockets, his head was bowed. He’d said goodbye to the rest of them. They each had monuments. Wes, Fred and Gunn laid out beside Cordy and Doyle. Bits of poetry, dates of birth and death, their names carved into marble headstones. Their bodies entombed in the earth. Except for Fred, her grave was empty. That was one reason he was here.  He wondered why he felt the need to have  something to say goodbye to. He wasn’t human and yet he still had such human needs.

 

This was where her body had been entombed for hundreds of years. A coffin set inside a hole in the world. He reached out, fingers sliding across the rough bark. He knew there was a door here somewhere and he wondered if he’d killed the only person who could open it. It didn’t matter now, holes like this were better left sealed.

 

He supposed he should have something to say, an elegy, but there was nothing. He hadn’t loved her, hadn’t even liked her that much. He had admired her, respected her and even felt pity that she should be caged in a shell much too small for what she was. He took a deep breath, intending to say goodbye and found he couldn’t. It was harder to say goodbye to her and in that moment he knew why. The others were mortal. He had always known they would die. He didn’t like the idea, but he had known the time would come. She was a god king, meant to be truly immortal. She had lived long before even him and should have lived long after him.

 

She had sacrificed that for him.

 

And her death hurt more than the others because of it.