by
Margot Le Faye

Angel slowly undid the fastenings of her top and her jeans. He took his time, lingering. Buffy sighed in pleasure as his large hands worked slowly over her body, unbuttoning, unsnapping, unzipping. His hands brushed lightly against her breasts, making her shiver with arousal. She stroked her own hands against his shoulders, then lazily brought them down to unfasten the buttons of his own shirt. And still they kissed, drinking in each other's taste, thirsting for more.

The slide of cloth against skin, the slow caress of flesh on flesh. They took their time removing each other's clothing, and took their time exploring what that clothing had concealed. He pressed her onto her back, mapping the familiar terrain of her body with his hands, an explorer discovering new realms, as all was remade in their newly returned love. He had learned, of course, the things she liked; what turned her on, what made her hot, what made sex between them so spicy, no matter how unhappy they were. All of that was irrelevant now. It was time to wipe away the bitterness of the past, and recast those memories with the sweetness of the present. He had to learn, or relearn, how to make love to her, how to worship her body with his own, how to express the infinite depth and breadth of his love for her, to make it manifest and real and…immutable.

An easy lesson, a memory never far beneath the surface. His hands made plain his adoration, skimming across her flesh, arousing the sensitive nerves. His lips and tongue soon followed, bathing her in kisses, soothing or enflaming by turns. So many places cried out for his attention: the back of a dimpled knee, the tender bend of an elbow, the quivering crease of her thigh, the smooth, firm swell of her belly, the sensitive underside of her full breasts, the fragile column of her throat that yet bore his mark. She shivered when he kissed her there and moaned in pleasure when he scraped his fangs gently along the brand.

Buffy was beyond weeping. All the pain of the past few years was being washed away by Angel's tenderness. Part of her felt as if she didn't deserve this. She had betrayed their love, first by not remembering their lost day, and then by her bitter accusations against him. Logically, she knew she wasn't at fault, that forces beyond her control had done things to her she could not prevent. Yet the illogical guilt lingered.

Until Angel told her in a language that needed no words that he forgave her, that he loved her, that he had never stopped loving her as she knew, now, that she had never stopped loving him. And she realized that to hold on to her bitterness and pain would be to give the First Evil a victory It did not deserve to have. So Buffy let go of her guilt and her anger and her pain, and instead devoted herself to returning the expression of Angel's love for her in an expression of her love for him. Her own hands caressed him back, wherever they could reach, her lips adored his flesh. The scent of desire lay heavy on the air, her arousal the most delicious perfume he could imagine. It was time, and past time, for this consummation.

Angel moved over her. She opened for him, pulling him into her embrace. His manhood slid unerringly into her welcoming heat, and they became what they were meant to be: one.

This was joy and rapture, completion and redemption. They were whole at last, in heart and spirit and flesh. The synchronicity that had always existed between them flowered into a harmony of thought and feeling. He moved inside her with power and tenderness, seeking out the heart of her desire. She met him with joy, utterly his, devoted to his pleasure as he was to hers. What could it be but perfection?

Silken heat enveloped him, wet warmth caressed him, he was where he belonged. Angel kissed her, drinking her in like a man dying of thirst would drink life-giving water. She gave him life; redeeming him from the hell of his own guilt and despair. Now, it was time to return the gift. He drove himself deep inside her, reveling in her breathy cries, the fluttering of her sugared walls around him, the way she rose to meet him, matching him exquisitely, flawlessly. Her tongue caressed his, drawing his into the wet delight of her mouth as her welcoming sheath drew the sword of his flesh into the wet delight of her body. Angel neither wanted nor needed any other paradise than the embrace in which he found himself, the arms of his beloved Buffy.

She had found her heaven, her Angel, her love, and it was all she could ever desire. She had missed him so much, even when they had been physically close, because their hearts had been isolated. Now, their hearts were once again united, and they were celebrating that reunion. He was inside her, filling her utterly, making her ache deliciously, making her crave him more than she already did. Buffy lifted herself to engulf him more fully, to offer herself more completely. So deep, but she wanted him deeper, so close, but it could never be close enough.

"Come to me," she whispered between kisses. "I love you so much,"

"So much," he agreed. "Love you so much…." Her arms were wrapped around him, her hands caressing his back. His own hands caressed over her, down her sides to her hips. He settled his hands over the rounded curves, lifting, angling her just slightly, driving himself just a tiny bit further.

Buffy screamed into his mouth, shuddering around him. She wasn't peaking, but he was bringing her closer. Pleased by her response, he growled approvingly into her mouth, withdrawing almost completely, and plunging ruthlessly back inside. She gasped in pleasure, hips rising to meet his thrusts, her arms tightening their embrace.

Angel's kisses became more demanding, Buffy's response more heated. He pulled away from the honeyed sweetness of her mouth to press fevered kisses along her jaw and down her throat, licking at her flesh, savoring the subtle spice of it, moving lower until he could capture one rose-tipped breast, laving his tongue around the aureole until the nipple was an achingly tight bud begging for his mouth. He opened his mouth and sucked the delicacy inside. Buffy sobbed at the glorious sensation, arching into him, her hands clenching against him, her nails beginning to scrape demandingly down his back.

She wanted more. He wanted to give her what she wanted.

Angel turned his attention to the other plump breast. Buffy tangled her hands in his hair, holding him closer. He shifted slightly, making her mewl in pleasure. Angel growled against her breast. She arched against him again, driving him deeper, taking him closer to the edge.

He wanted her there with him. He stroked inside her steadily, building her own pleasure, angling himself to hit the most sensitive spots inside her, while allowing her to grind her clit against the base of his cock. She was whimpering, the power of the fire he was building inside her almost frightening in its intensity. With a groan, Angel abandoned her breast and returned to her mouth, kissing her fiercely, possessively, needing to burn out of her memory the taste or feel of any mouth but his own, kissing her in love and passion, not merely desire.

Fire and heat in her blood, rapture sizzling along the path of her nerves, Angel kissing, her embracing her, filling her, loving her. She needed only one thing more to make their reunion absolutely perfect.

Buffy broke the kiss, and gazed into his passion-glazed eyes, knowing her own were as heated.

"Drink me," she said seductively, smiling as his brown eyes glowed suddenly golden, her erotic invitation rousing the demon in him. He bent to her throat, tongue laving sensuously over the scar.

And then his fangs slid into her, piercing her skin, just as he manhood pierced her body, and she screamed as unutterable ecstasy consumed her.

Communion. There was no other word for it. They shared flesh and blood, soul and spirit, renewing and redeeming each other.

The life-giving stream of her blood poured into his mouth. Angel reveled in the pure deliciousness of Buffy, spiced by her Slayer's power, and now mixed with the tang of his own blood, commingled with hers only hours before. His pleasure mounted as her blood flowed into him, racing along every vein in his body, renewing, restoring, revitalizing him. And then she was coming, her body sealed around his like wax around a mold. He gave himself over to the delight of her tight channel grasping him convulsively, the intoxicating liquor of her blood pouring down his throat. He came with her, his seed flooding deep inside her womb, as he drove into her unrelentingly and she unhesitatingly met each thrust. Fierce joy possessed them as they reached this completion in each other's arms.

He drew it out as long as he could, needing her satisfaction to be thorough, needing to give himself to her utterly, to wipe away any lingering doubt or sorrow from the past eleven years. He succeeded. Buffy clung to him, as the fire burned through her, and the welcome coolness of his seed spurted within her while her life's blood pulsed into his mouth. The orgasm she endured was more a series of climaxes, each one building on the other until she was consumed in the fire of them, mindless with rapture, reduced to nothing but feeling…and the only thing she could feel was Angel, around her and within her. That was all she wanted to feel.

Gradually, the fires of passion that had consumed him burned down, allowing him to think. Angel gently retracted his fangs, licking the tiny wounds closed. He lifted his head to look down at her. Buffy's eyes were closed, her full lips parted in a small, replete smile. Her lids fluttered open as he watched, and she gazed up at him tenderly. He smiled as tenderly back, then rolled slightly, to spare her his weight. Their bodies still joined, he pulled her close into his arms, noting with pleasure how perfectly they fit together as she snuggled into him, resting her head against his shoulder.

The exchanged sleepy, sated kisses and tender words of love, then fell asleep wrapped safely in each other's arms. As she drifted off, a vague thought occurred to Buffy. Angel was still a vampire, but his heart beat. Perhaps there were other physical changes that had occurred as well. Somewhere in that idea was an important issue, but she was so very, very tired…

"When we get back to our own dimension," he returned, hefting the sword while his eyes scanned the horizon for some threat neither Buffy nor Angel could see, "after I've kicked your ass from here to Sunday, you amazingly annoying chit, I'm going to give your mum and the poof a piece of my mind for blackmailing me into helping you."

and they woke up in each other's arms.

"Well, that was intense," Buffy sighed, snuggling more closely against Angel.

"What did it mean?" Angel asked, holding her tight.

"Don't know," she answered sleepily. "But it didn't seem bad."

He chuckled. No, it hadn't seemed bad at all. They drifted off again, secure in the knowledge that whatever was to come, they would face it together.

"Of course," Rupert Giles said excitedly. It was the night after their battle, and everyone had joined them at Joyce's home so that Buffy and Angel could explain what had happened. Giles was relieved, happier than he had been in a long time. His Slayer was radiant, blooming with health and happiness. "The First Evil tried to destroy you all those years ago. I should have realized It might be behind things." They were gathered around Joyce Summers' living room table, celebrating the good news.

"And I should have realized that, as well," Buffy said ruefully. "It told me, the first time we met, that It was responsible for 'every drop of hate' in the world. I should have figured It had something to do with mine. But we weren't meant to realize it." She and Angel were on her mother's new love seat, opposite the couch where Willow, Tara and Giles were sitting. Cordy, Wesley and Joyce, Xander and Anya were in chairs that had been drawn up around the coffee table, so that all of the gang formed a loose, companionable circle. "Not until it was time. Who knows? If we had figured out what It was up to, and stopped It, maybe It would have found some other way to destroy us. Maybe that's one of the reasons prophecies are obscure until the events surrounding them unfold…so that they can unfold without interference."

"I'd say we had plenty of interference," Angel said darkly, his arm tightening around her shoulder. She smiled at him reassuringly. "By the way, how do you think the WC are going to take this?" he asked grimly, directing the question to the two former Watchers.

"Wesley and I have been in contact with our friends. It looks like sending out the team of assassins and starting an internal war was the last gasp of the Traditionalists. The Neutrals were outraged, and sided with the Modernists. The Traditionalists who survived are all in custody. And Wesley and I have been formally invited back onto the Council by the new ruling board. I'd say that the threat to the Slayer is well and truly over, and the Watcher's Council can get back to doing what it has been supposed to be doing for the past several thousand years…helping the Slayer.

"That'll make a nice change," Angel said. "It will be easier if she doesn't have to fight her friends as well as her enemies." He looked into her eyes, his own eyes holding sorrow and regret. "Or her lover."

"It wasn't your fault," Buffy said firmly, not flinching away from the look in his eyes, or from her own responsibility. "We know now that the First was manipulating us both. The important thing is, we got past it," she told him. "When we had to, we did what needed to be done."

He quirked a smile. "Among other things," he teased.

Buffy giggled. Angry sex had been…hot. And she wouldn't mind repeating some of the things they had done in the heat of rage. But she could happily leave the rage itself in the past where it belonged.

"Well, that's just about everything," Buffy said, snuggling back into her beloved's arms. "Most of he indications in the Metzynsk Tablets and the Compton Scrolls have been realized. The Tibetan Prophecy is fulfilled. The Tarquinia Fragment ritual is completed, although Angel and I are going to exchange the rings again at our wedding, just to be on the safe side. Angel is my sworn shield…and eternal mate. And, yes, Wesley, before you point out that we aren't actually immortal, and that there are still some things that can kill us, especially if we are separated, let me assure you that we already know that. The prophecy said we would be immutable, but immutable vampires were always vulnerable to stakes and sunlight and other things. Even if Angel can withstand those things now, we both know that we aren't really going to live forever. Especially if we get overconfident or careless."

"Good," Wesley said. "I would hate to have you both come through so much just to be done in by sloppy technique at the end."

"Not gonna happen, if I can help it," Buffy assured him.

"But you will, like Angel, stop aging, yes?" Giles said.

"For what it's worth, yeah." Buffy agreed.

"For what it's worth?" her former Watcher questioned.

"Giles, I think we've always known that I wouldn't really live to be a little old lady with cats and a rocking chair." Buffy said gently. "Angel and I…we're warriors. Eventually, we're going to fall in battle."

"Buffy," Joyce choked out, her wineglass slipping from nerveless fingers. Angel snatched it out of the air before it spilled on the carpet.

"Mom, I'm thirty," Buffy said calmly. "No Slayer has ever lived that long. And all the indications are that I'm going to be around for a long, long time to come.

"A century or so, as near as we can tell," Giles agreed. Joyce's eyes widened in delight.

"Truly?" she asked.

"Truly," Buffy said. "There's language about the Shield that is pretty confusing until you realize that Angel is the Shield. For every year scourged, two shielded, until the balance is met.

"I spent over a hundred years as the Scourge of Europe," Angel added, "It takes time to build that sort of reputation. I don't think I was given that title much before 1770, and I was given my soul back the first time in 1898. One hundred and twenty-eight years, then, roughly."

"Translating to about two hundred and fifty six years you have to spend protecting my daughter," Joyce said with real satisfaction. "After twelve and a half years of worrying that every night might be her last, of sometimes being so frightened that I couldn't sleep at all unless I took enough sleeping pills to knock out a horse, do you have any idea how delightful that sounds to me?"

Buffy smiled. There was no need to tell her mother that there were no guarantees. She could die next week, and Angel would be left to shield the next Slayer. Still, everything they had learned pointed to a more hopeful outcome.

But there were some unanswered questions.

"About the only thing we haven't really figured out is part of the writing from the Metzynsk Tablets. What's the deal with the new Slayer? When is she going to arrive? And how is she going to be bound to me?"

They began to suspect they had their answer a few weeks later, when Buffy missed her first flow. Assuming that as Angel was still a vampire, he still couldn’t father children, Buffy's pregnancy caught them by surprise. But they quickly realized that he had gained more than just a heartbeat when their blood was mixed. Buffy had a moment of pure joy. She had been sixteen when he told her that vampires couldn't father children, and so she had begun to come to terms with the fact that she might never have her own at that time. Later, when it had seemed impossible for them to be together, she still hadn't thought too much about the issue. It had been all very well for Angel to say that she should have a full life, with someone who could give her everything he could not, but the truth was, advanced pregnancy was apt to play havoc with slaying. Buffy had pretty much expected that no matter who was in her life, children weren't going to be in the picture. Then, no one had been in her life, making the entire point moot.

Now, unlooked for miracle, she was pregnant. By her Angel. Who would Shield her, and the world, during the later, cumbersome stages of her pregnancy. She would give birth to a healthy, happy, loved and wanted child, who would grow up in a loving home…

…and age and die long before his or her parents did so. Buffy's moment of joy turned into pure hysteria. Angel found her sobbing on the bathroom floor, the pregancy test clutched in her hand, unable to articulate what was wrong.

Fortunately for him, it was at that moment that Whistler made an appearance. Whistler assured Buffy that the mystic properties of the parents would be mystically passed on to their child. Which would make it easier if they ever had to go to the demon dimensions--or any other alternate reality--for a prolonged period of time.

That matter dealt with, Buffy's joy was restored. They phoned Joyce and Giles, honeymooning in Hawaii, and broke the news. Joyce was ready to cut their trip short and return home, but Giles was able to persuade her that there really wasn't any rush, given that the blessed event was a good seven or eight months in the future. Willow and Tara were just as excited, delighted at the prospect of being aunts…three times over, as both Anya and Cordy had already discovered themselves to be in similar conditions.

"I just want to know why Slayers get to skip morning sickness," Cordy muttered on one visit. Anya nodded her head in agreement, handing Cordy another saltine cracker as they watched Buffy happily wolf down a breakfast that would have done a lumberjack proud.

As if to make up for the pain of the previous twelve years, everything went smoothly during Buffy's pregnancy. Still, it wasn't until their daughter was born at the end of summer and they saw the telltale birthmark that it all became clear.

"The next generation of Slayer," Buffy said proudly, as Frances--named in honor of a certain Irish half-demon--nursed hungrily at her breast.

"Immutable and invincible, like her parents," Angel said, grateful that Whistler had shown up to tell them that much when Buffy first learned she was pregnant.

Whistler came back within a few days of Frances' birth. He told them that this was the new method for calling Slayers. No longer would they be randomly chosen young women, but the oldest daughter of the current Slayer. These Slayers and all their children would have the same unnaturally long life expectancy as the founder of their line, as if The Powers That Be were making up for the deaths of so many young girls by ensuring that their successors had a better deal. However, the number of children each Slayer could bear would be small, to keep things in balance.

Whistler skirted Angel's fatherly question about where his children and grandchildren were going to find suitably long-lived mates. Whistler told him that he needn't worry about Frances, and said something about Buffy having managed nicely and how some vampires didn’t need an Orb of Thesulah to make them capable of love.

"You can't be serious! No vampire knows what love is! The only vampire I've ever met who had a clue was Spike and…" Angel froze, his eyes narrowing as her remembered the image from the dream he and Buffy had shared. Perhaps the dark-haired young woman with Spike hadn't been Buffy after all. He smiled in a way that made Whistler gulp and back up a step. "You wouldn't by any remote chance be trying to hint that Spike is going to marry my baby girl, would you?" he said in the most silkily deadly voice Whistler had ever heard.

"Angel, buddy, I wouldn't dream of dropping you that hint!" he said with perfect truth, desperately hoping that his curse of always being misunderstood would work in his favor, for once.

"Good," Angel growled, to Whistler's very great relief. Angel hadn't caught on.

"The only thing I can tell you about your daughter and, really, about all future Slayers, is that they are going to be like Buffy. They'll fall in love young and they'll fall in love forever. And, sorry, but in every case that love is going to be tested almost as severely as you and Buffy were tested. Because in every case, it's going to have to be for the long haul."

Angel nodded curtly to show that he understood. The father in him didn't like it a bit, but the warrior in him understood the necessity. Whistler gave him a few more pieces of information TPTB had told him he and Buffy would need, just before he decided that discretion was the better part of valor and disappeared. He planned on not returning for at least another fifty years, by which time Angel should have come to terms with his son-in-law.

But they had years before their daughter's romantic life became an issue. Right now, they could just enjoy being together and being a family, the way they had always wanted, and never expected, to be.

"I guess we really do get to live happily ever after, huh?" Buffy said softly, looking up into her husband's eyes, her own tender and luminous and shining with love.

"I guess we really do," Angel agreed, his smile blinding as he bent down to kiss his wife.

And so they did.

The End

FEMFIC      PART 10     FEEDBACK

Sign My Guestbook View My Guestbook