Title: The Flame
Summary: Post NFA. The comic book “Angel” storyline is referred to here very vaguely so minor spoilers there. You don’t need to have read the comic book to understand this little ficlet though. B/A

A/N: Written for Moviequoteminis "If you want to be loved, you have to be worth loving, that's the first rule. Second, be the flame, not the moth." -Casanova in Casanova.

Disclaimer: Don't own them or we'd have the weekly 2 hour Buffy and Angel show, possibly bi-weekly.



Buffy wrapped her arms around her waist and glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. Somehow she had expected him to look different, older, battle worn yet he never did.

“Do I look the same to you?” she asked in a rush of breath then shook her head. “Never mind. I’m older…so much older than when you first met me and hey human so of course I don’t look the same.”

“You do…and then you don’t,” he said, his head dipping. He looked back up at her after a moment. “Every single time I see you, I see this innocent, amazing sixteen year old girl bathed in sunlight, then time slips in and I can see the way you’ve grown too thin, the way battle and life has hardened your edges, the beautiful woman you’ve turned into.”

“I haven’t been that girl in so long,” she whispered, turning back to the window. She didn’t want to look at him, didn’t want to touch him. She knew if she did she’d want more and the only consistency between her and Angel had always been that they couldn’t have what they wanted.

“When you smile…you still are, at least to me,” Angel answered softly. He watched her in silence for a moment before rising. He walked up behind her, placing his hands on her shoulders.

Buffy shook her head and pulled away. “Don’t,” she whispered. Her tone pleaded for him to touch her again.

Angel nodded, dipped his head and stuck his hands in his pockets. “I’m sorry. I thought-

“You thought what?” Buffy turned on her heels, suddenly all anger and pain. “You thought you could waltz in here, play with my heart, tell me that you love me and you want to stay forever then turn around and leave me when it gets to be a little too much. Guess what, Angel…it’s always going to be too much between us. Too much want, too much need, too much everything except time.” Her voice broke and she turned back to the window.

He could see her reflection in the window, mossy green eyes glittering with tears. He backed toward the door, tracing her image in his mind so that it would be there for years to come. He turned and put his hand on the doorknob. Her voice stopped him in his tracks.

“Does it get easier? Walking away from me?” Her words were soft but the sliced through him like a dull, jagged blade.

“It crucifies me…every time,” he answered. His words carried the weight of his pain, his burden.

“Then why? Why do all the men in my life leave? Dad, you…Parker, Riley, Giles…okay so Spike died…Mortie…the Immortal…not that I was all ooo stay but…I was so incredibly easy to leave.” She stared out the window, drawing into herself as she spoke. “I guess it’s the whole slayer thing…one girl…she alone…all those other slayers and I’m still alone.”

Angel crossed the room in the space of a breath, grabbing her shoulders and turning her to face him. “No. You were never supposed to be alone. I left you so you would never be alone.”

“And that logic works in what universe?” Buffy snapped back at him. She pulled away from him but didn’t turn her back.

Angel shook his head and reached up to rub his temple. “It-I thought you’d-“

“I’d what? Find my one true love?” Buffy shouted at him. “I did, Angel. It was you! I was sixteen years old! And now…I’m like this moth fluttering up against the glass trying so hard to get to the flame without ever realizing that it’s impossible…or maybe I realize and I just don’t care that I’m beating myself up. Maybe I think that one of these days, if I try hard enough, flutter long enough…the glass will just disappear.”

The silence wrapped around them like smoke as Buffy held Angel’s gaze, watching the emotions gather in his eyes, finally she ducked her head and half turned away from him. Tears pricked her own eyes and she reached up to dash them away.

“It doesn’t matter anyway…it’s never gonna happen,” she whispered.

“One of these days, it will,” Angel answered her. “It has to. That’s what keeps me going, what keeps me fighting when I should give up…what keeps me from walking into the sunrise.”

“And until then?” Buffy asked, looking up at Angel.

“Cookie dough.” He gave her that particular half grin that was hers and hers alone. “I meant when I said I wasn’t getting any older and there are some things I need to figure out for myself. This trip…wasn’t an accident. It’s a stop on a longer journey. I’m going to Romania. I’m going to find out a little more about my curse, about my soul.”

Buffy’s eyes widened in surprise, her lips parted and for a moment nothing came out. “Really?”

Angel nodded. “I don’t know if I’ll find anything out. There could be nothing to find out, but either way…you planning on staying in Rome?”

“Indefinitely,” Buffy smiled at him, the first real smile she’d graced him with since he walked in the room.

Angel nodded then, a grin spreading across his face as he stepped away from her. He watched her while he backed toward the door and opened it. “Oh, and Buffy…you were always the flame.”