Title: Pieces of Heaven

Summary: What exactly was it that Buffy wanted to stay in Heaven for?

Pairing: Very BA

Disclaimer: Please, at the very least we would have seen that infamous BA scene in Season 6/3.

A/N: The little scene at the very end is taken from the episode “Carpe Noctem”  Season 3 of Ats. I just added an Angel thought and feeling. Thanks to Buffyworld for the great transcripts. Thank you to Rachel for her advice when Musey decided to be a bitca and not write this piece. *sticks her tongue out at Musey* Now she’ll probably go on strike again.

 

 

 

 

On earth there is no Heaven, but there are pieces of it.

 

                                                                                    -Jules Renard

 

           

 

            She stood at the end of the path waiting for him. She smiled, golden hair shining in the sun and held out her hand. Her green eyes twinkled up at him.

 

            “You found me,” he said as he pulled her into his arms.

 

            She snuggled closer and sighed contentedly. “We found each other. We always find each other.”

 

            “I remember; if I were blind I would see you.”

 

            She nodded. “Always, but I’m sorry I took so long though.”

 

            He shook his head. “Shhh, it doesn’t matter now.” He bent low and kissed her lips softly.  She arched into him and twined her fingers in his hair.

 

            “Missed this,” she whispered against his mouth.

 

            “So much,” he finished.

 

            She pulled away with a smile. “Did you know you’d love me even here?”

 

            “I’d love you anywhere. There isn’t a place or a time I wouldn’t love you.”

 

            “But *how* did you know you’d love me here?” She asked.

 

            He sighed and pulled her closer. He nuzzled her neck, drowning himself in her scent. “You’re part of me, you’re like my air.”

 

            She giggled. “You don’t breathe, silly.”

 

            “Okay, you’re like blood. What I feel for you is so much more then love, its need. Without you, I’ll die.”

 

            A frown creased her brow and she pulled away from him. She cupped his cheek with her hand. “Shhh, don’t say things like that. You can’t die. You have to live, be my legacy, let everyone know that there once was a girl, just a girl, named Buffy and she loved a vampire with a soul with everything inside of her.”

 

 

            Angel woke up with a start. He clutched at his chest and his gaze careened around the room wildly. His breath came in harsh pants. She was here. He knew she was here. He could smell her. He could still feel the warmth of her hand against his cheek. There was a slight tap on the door and he leapt to his feet. The door opened a crack. A small, rotund, Tibetan man peeked around.

 

            “Brother Angel, we heard you speak in your sleep next door. Are you alright?”  

 

            Angel nodded and answered him in Tibetan. “I am fine. It was a…dream.”

 

            The monk nodded and started to leave.

 

            “Wait, what did I say?” Angel asked.

 

            “I do not know. You spoke in what we assume was English.”

 

            Angel lay back on his pallet on the cold stone floor. He rested his hands on his chest and took deep, calming breaths.  The dream was so real, more real then anything in this monastery of cold stone and mortar.  He closed his eyes and prayed he’d never wake up again.

 

 

            He walked up behind her and slipped his arms around her waist. He nuzzled her neck in greeting. She giggled and curled her toes in the sand. “Hey, again.”

 

            “The beach this time?” He asked.

 

            She shrugged. “I wanted a change of pace, besides in my dreams it’s always the beach.”

 

            “So is this your dream or mine?”

 

            She considered that a moment. “Your dream, my Heaven.”

 

            He grew still and quiet at those words. She turned in his arms and cupped his face in her hands. “I’m okay here, you know.”

 

            He nodded.

 

            “Mom is here, Celia, all the other slayers. I’m warm and safe,” she said.

 

            “I know, it’s Heaven.”

 

            She smiled softly up at him and ruffled a hand through his hair. “No, just these little pieces.”

 

            He curled his body around her, content to submerge himself in this tiny blonde.

 

            “Don’t leave me again, please don’t leave me again,” he pleaded.

 

            “Oh, Baby, I never left you. I will never leave you; remember I’m part of you. As long as you’re alive, I’ll be with you, part of you,” she said.

 

            “I’m dead, without you somewhere in the world, I’m dead.”

 

            She shook her head. “I am somewhere in the world,” she rested her hand on his heart. “I’m here.”

 

            Angel woke up with a start, drenched in a cold sweat.  He scrubbed his hands over his face and through his hair. His stomach rumbled and it occurred to him that he hadn’t fed in days. He’d been spending all his time sleeping, trying to get back into his dreams.  He got up and put on the white robe he’d been issued when he’d come here two months ago. He wrapped it tightly around his waist. He walked barefoot through the many halls and up the many sets of stairs he had to traverse to get to the kitchen. The other monks were taking their evening meal. He never ate with them; in fact he avoided human contact as much as possible.

 

            In the very back of the surprisingly modern Sub Zero refrigerator, the monks kept a supply of animal blood for Angel. It was drained daily from the cattle the monks kept. They never took enough to kill the animal, merely enough to feed the vampire.  He took the container of cold blood and heated it in the microwave. He was taking his mug down to his room when one of the monks walked into the kitchen. He bowed to Angel in greeting. Angel returned the bow.

 

            “Brother Angel, will you be attending services with us this evening?”

 

            Angel shook his head. “No, thank you.”

 

            They always asked him to attend services. His answer was always the same. He was not here for spiritual guidance. He was here to avoid human contact. He was here to mourn the love of his unnaturally long existence. He suspected he would be here a very long time.

 

            She was waiting for him in a hammock strung between two palm trees this time. He climbed gracefully into the hammock and wrapped himself around her.

 

            “You can’t do this, you know,” she said.

 

            “Do what?” He asked.

 

            “Be all avoidy.”

 

            He sighed. “I’m not avoiding you. I’m here.”

 

            She elbowed him lightly in the gut.  “You know that’s not what I meant.”

 

            He made a ‘guaff” sound as the air he held in his lungs rushed out. “I know.”

 

            “Angel, you can’t hide here forever. You’ve got a destiny to fulfill and we can’t run from our destinies.”

 

            “You did. You jumped into a portal that wasn’t yours to close,” he said.

 

            She shook her head, tears filled her eyes. “That’s different and I did fulfill my destiny. I was to fight evil, save the world until it killed me. It finally did.”

 

            He downed his head and trailed his fingers along the ends of her hair. They both knew she wasn’t talking about the portal.

 

            “You’ve got to go back to them,” she said.

 

            “Let me just stay with you,” he begged.

 

            She turned on her stomach, so that she was facing him. She trailed her fingers over his face. “You will, one day.”

 

            He shook his head. “You and I both know that’s not true. No matter how much good I do, I can’t make up for the things I did.”

 

            “The things Angelus did and you’re here now aren’t you?”

 

            He looked away from her, unable to stand the love he found there. “Only because you willed it so.” His voice was a soft, thick whisper.

 

            She turned his face back to look at her. “And who says I won’t will it so when it’s finally your time. We will find each other, we always find each other, Angel.”

 

            He lay in his bed. There was something wrong with the monks. They hadn’t asked him to their services tonight. He tried to remember if it was a particularly special night and couldn’t recall one. He’d been here three months, for three months the monks had asked him to attend their services and yet tonight they’d seemed almost anxious to get rid of him, to send him back to his room with his mug of blood.

 

            It niggled at him. It told him to get up and investigate, but he knew if he just laid here and closed his eyes he’d get to go visit Buffy.  Whatever it is, it can wait until tomorrow, he thought as he closed his eyes and wondered where Buffy would meet him tonight.

 

            It was a fairytale forest complete with a fairy ring and a crystal pool in a clearing. Angel wasn’t sure but he thought he saw a unicorn peeking around a tree trunk. Buffy was sitting next to the pool in a dress of fragile white. Angel walked up behind her and placed a kiss on her neck, right where his scar still lay.

 

            “Angel,” she breathed.

 

            He loved the way she said his name, breathy and with just a hint of wonderment. 

 

            He sat down behind her, enveloping her body with his.  He breathed in the scent of her, carved the feel of her into his memory even more deeply then before.

 

            “You’ve got to go back to them, Angel.”

 

            He shook his head. “Why can’t I stay with you?”

 

            “I wish you could. I’m done. I knew when I jumped into that portal, I felt it. I was finished. You’re not finished yet. There are things you have to do, people who need you. You have to keep going, fight the good fight,” she said.

 

            “I can’t do it, Buffy. I’m not that strong. I never was. I started fighting because of you, after I left Sunnydale the only reason I could continue it was because I knew you were still there, fighting your own battle and if I could make your burden any less by doing my part in Los Angeles, it made it worth it. Without you there, I don’t have a reason to fight.”

 

            She sighed and trailed her fingertips over his face, touched his eyebrow, his cheekbone, his chin. “Then do it for me, do it so they’ll remember I wasn’t just another slayer in a long line. Do it so they’ll remember Buffy Summers.”

 

            He lay in bed, his hands tucked behind his head. It was nice to be home. It was nice to be with people who cared about him and it was nice to be fighting the good fight again, Buffy’s fight. He still missed her. He’d miss her for the rest of his existence. Buffy Summers wasn’t someone you just got over, but for the first time in three months since Buffy’s death, he wasn’t trying to go to sleep. He wasn’t trying to find Buffy. She hadn’t come to him in his dreams since his return to Los Angeles. He knew it was because she was letting go, at least for now.

 

Forever, that’s the whole point.

 

            The words came to him just as clearly as she’d whispered them in his ear. At one point he would have dismissed it, now he knew she could visit him, she had.

 

 

            She stood at the edge of the beach. The waves lapped over her bare toes and the rising sun washed her in brilliant orange light. She turned to him with a sad smile, and he realized the sunrise came from with in her. She was his sunrise, one he could see.

 

            “Angel,”

 

            “Buffy,” he said as he wrapped his arms around her. “Not that I’m complaining, but I thought these meetings were over.”

 

            She sighed sadly. “I needed to see you one more time.”

 

            He nuzzled her neck, nipped at her collarbone. She turned her face up to him, her lips parted and closed her eyes. He placed a kiss on her mouth. Her fingers twined in his hair, pulling him closer, pouring passion and need into him. He trailed wet kisses across her jaw, down the column of her neck and suckled on the curve where his mark lay.  She moaned softly and arched into him. Her fingers found the buttons on his shirt and nimbly undid them. Her hands, hot little hands, slid his shirt over the curve of his shoulders so that it pooled on the sand below.

 

            He pulled away, breath coming in short, harsh pants. “Buffy,”

 

            She placed her fingers over his lips. “Shhh, just kiss me.”

 

            He started to speak again and she smiled. “This is Heaven, do you really think Angelus has any place here?”

 

            He swallowed hard. “Wolfram and Hart-“

 

            “Don’t have any place here either. Please, Angel, please just give me this little piece of Heaven before I have to go.”

 

            He furrowed his brow. “Go?”

 

            “Shhh, just kiss me.”

 

           

 

            “It’s like something from Fitzgerald- The man who can have everything but love- Well, maybe in some ways  you’re better off, because love is…Well  in a way it’s everything…But it’s also heartache and disappoint- And those are good things to avoid,” Fred said.

 

            Cordy ran out onto the patio, breathless. “Angel, Willow’s on the phone. She’s alive! Buffy’s alive!”

 

            Shock rolled over Angel, it took his insides and twisted them. The world tilted sideways. He looked at Fred a moment, leapt to his feet and rushed inside.

 

            Oh, God, Willow, what have you done?