RATING: NC-17

DISCLAIMER: If they were mine, the Initiative, Parker and WTWTA would never have happened, the terms "neutered" and "Spike" would never have appeared in the same episode, let alone the same sentence, and Riley would have been content to adore Buffy from afar (like, maybe, Cleveland?) This is fanfic, which, for some 70 years, has been a recognized art form that does not infringe on copyright. Until the nice folks at Fox came along, anyway. No copyright infringement is intended.

NOTE: After reading Just a Stepping Stone and Carrie’s end notes, I decided she could use some cheering up. Hell, I decided I could use some cheering up, and I figured that there were a lot more ‘shippers out there in the same boat. So, I sat down, whipped up this very short piece in one sitting (Well, it was a lot shorter before I revised it during a second sitting, adding the requisite six page smut scene at the end, and then revised again during a third sitting, adding some additional plot points about curses, Cordy’s reactions, and Buffy’s inner turmoil. Originally, the last line of the story was placed just after Buffy removed her towel.) and sent it to Carrie. She said I could share, so I am.
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Buffy had just enough sense to know that she couldn’t drive back to Sunnydale in her condition. She was in so much pain and anger that she couldn’t possibly focus on the road. She needed to go out and kill something.

Well, fortunately for her, LA had lots of things for her to kill. . .

She drove to the first decent motel she could find, a handful of blocks from Angel’s apartment, and registered, going immediately up to her room and heading for the courtesy bar. She hated alcohol, but she was desperate for anything that would dull the jagged edges of the pain knifing into her heart.

Not only her heart. . . her soul. She had believed they were soul-mates. Even when he had forced her to try to find someone who could "take her into the sunlight" she had known, deep within herself, that she would only ever be making do, settling, loving the one she was with because she wasn’t with the one she loved.

In the end, it had never been enough. She had hurt so many men--good, decent, caring men--because she would finally have to admit to herself that being with them was worse than being alone, robbing her of a part of herself, violating something sacred inside her.

And now. . . she couldn’t think about it. She would hang on until dark, then go find the nearest graveyard and look for something to smash into oblivion.

Wishing she could find some sort of oblivion, herself, she opened another bottle.

The first part of her patrol was disappointing. She found a dozen vampires rising, but none was remotely a challenge and she hadn’t even broken a sweat.

Restless, she continued to patrol, even knowing it was probably futile. And when she saw the dark, unmistakable figure coming toward her, she began to think it was worse the futile.

"What the hell do you think you’re doing, following me?" she spat out.

"I didn’t know you would be here," Angel said quietly. "Cordy’s in trouble. Whistler came by, so it must be something big. He told me she’s being held captive in one of the mausoleums here, and that if I didn’t rescue her. . . the world would end." Angel had the grace to look uncomfortable. "He never said I’d find you here, too."

Buffy gritted her teeth. She wanted to tell him how very much she didn’t care. But Whistler never came out for the small stuff. If he said the world would end, then it would. And much as she might personally welcome sweet nothingness, she was still too much the Slayer to let her friends and family, and a world full of innocents, suffer for her screwed up love life.

"Which mausoleum?" she said tightly. Angel told her.

They could hear the voices long before they got to the crypt. Or the voice. Although the words were spoken in a pattern of statement and response, only one person seemed to be speaking.

Cordelia.

"Are you, like, crazy?" Cordelia was saying. "He’ll never believe that!"

Cordelia’s tinkling laughter answered her.

"He already does! Can’t you see? Don’t you know what I’m wearing on my left hand?"

Angel and Buffy exchanged grim glances. They made short work of breaking into the crypt. . .

. . .to find that Cordelia, dirty, ragged, and clearly malnourished, was hanging from a set of chains set into the far wall, while her captor tormented her.

Her captor. . .Cordelia.

The Cordelia who wasn't hanging from the chains spun toward them with a hiss. When she saw who was in the doorway, her eyes widened and she gave a horrified shriek of denial.

"Noooooooo!!!!" she screamed, her hands going protectively to her face. But it was too late. Seeing the false Cordy with the true had broken the spell, and she reverted to her real form.

With a smirk, Buffy turned to Angel. "Great taste in girlfriends, deadboy," she said as she whipped out her stake and bounded down the stone steps of the crypt to attack the ghastly, green-skinned demon cowering before them.

Recovering from his shock, Angel went to the wall and broke Cordy’s chains. Released from her bondage, she slumped to the floor.

It didn’t take long for Buffy to destroy her opponent. That type of demon, primarily a sexual predator, wasn’t particularly strong. And with its death, the spell it used to ensnare Angel was also broken. As the reality of the situation swept over him, Angel groaned, dizzy, and leaned against the wall for support. He retained enough strength to claw the silver claddagh ring from his hand and hurl it into the dust, a look of horror on his face. Cordelia followed his gaze.

"A claddagh?" she squealed in disgust. "You thought that thing was me, and you gave it a claddagh? As if I would ever. . . I mean, family, yeah, but. . .Angel, how could you not think that I would think, like, ‘vampire: Ewwww!’?"

It was a question Angel couldn’t even begin to answer. He shook his head in negation, as if he could deny his memories of the past few weeks.

Buffy spared him a glance as she brushed by him to kneel beside the distraught Cordy. Buffy noted the look of confusion, horror and despair on Angel’s face, and she was savagely glad that he was feeling the tiniest fraction of what she had felt from the moment Xander had spilled the beans about Angel’s anchored soul and his seeming commitment to Cordelia. Sure, he had been under the influence of magic, but some part of her felt that spell or no spell, his love for her should have been inviolate. It hadn’t been, and she wasn’t sure what that meant. She was still too hurt to deal with Angel easily. She focused her attention on the abused Cordy.

"How long were you here?" She said gently, draping the other girl’s arm about her neck and helping her to stand.

"Ow! A month? The day after I got the vision from TPTB telling me Angel’s soul was anchored. With Wesley in England for the summer, the two of us were supposed to meet for dinner to celebrate. He was late."

"I. . . I was attacked on my way there," he explained. The two women cast him fulminating glances, and ignored him. Buffy helped Cordy out of the crypt, letting Angel fend for himself.

Buffy wanted to take Cordy to the emergency room, but the brunette refused to go. She insisted that she just needed a bath, some rest, and a good meal. Buffy saw that she got all three, then left her to the attentions of her ghostly roommate, who fussed over her covers and tucked her in like a small child. Buffy wondered if there were any spells to recall a ghost to life, and made a mental note to have Willow check into that. Phantom Dennis seemed like a really nice guy. . .

She went back to her motel room, and taking a page from Cordy’s book, drew herself a bath, relaxing in it for about an hour. When she started to prune, she regretfully got out, and wrapped herself in the thin sheets of terry cloth the hotel called "towels." She had just finished drying her hair when the knock sounded on the door. Buffy sighed. She hadn’t brought a robe. Of course, he had seen her in less, and she was just angry enough to rub his face in it, too. Wondering what had taken him so long to track her down, Buffy secured her towel and opened the door.

She didn’t know where he had found a florist after midnight, but he had found one of the best. She could barely see him over the huge bouquet of roses he had in his hands.

Smirking, she leaned against the doorjamb.

"And I should let you in. . . why?" she said sweetly.

"Buffy. . ." he began, but he didn’t seem to know where to go from there. His face was the picture of abject misery. She relented.

"All right. Come in." She stepped aside to let him enter, then closed the door behind him. When she turned back, he was on his knees, having lain the roses at her feet.

"I don’t even know where to begin to beg you to forgive me," he said hollowly. She almost felt sorry for him. But she was still hurt and angry.

"I think you’d better figure that out. Because you are going to have a lot of begging to do, before I will even consider forgiving you."

"I know. I can tell you that it was an Acidjosscracksmoking demon, or what we call a Jossie, but that won’t mean much to you."

"You’re right. It doesn’t." Buffy pulled over a chair, making herself comfortable. She did not indicate that Angel should get off his knees and he did not attempt to do so.

"The Jossie. . .it looks weak and small, but it has powers of illusion that are amazingly potent. Once you know what one is, they’re pretty easy to kill. But while it has you in its thrall. . .it can make you believe things, incredible things, things you would never consider in your right mind."

"So you admit you weren’t in your right mind?"

"How could I have been?" he asked miserably. "You’re the only woman I’ve ever loved in two hundred and fifty years. I still can’t believe that when I found myself falling. . .for Cordy!. . .that I didn’t realize something was wrong."

"Yes. You damned well should have!" she said, allowing her anger to show. Then another thought occurred to her. "Why was Whistler yammering about the end of the world? How could this Jossie bring that about?"

"Well, normally, a Jossie just casts a romantic illusion that sucks its victims in. When the Jossie has control of them, it drains them of their energy. Um. Sexually."

"And this would end the world, how?" Buffy growled as images of Angel and the false Cordy locked in a passionate embrace assaulted her.

Angel looked, if possible, even more miserable. "If I had, um, gotten intimate with it--"

Buffy sat up straight, interrupting him.

"Wait! Rewind! You gave her--it-- a claddagh but you hadn’t gotten intimate, yet? You were going to marry her, but you hadn’t taken her to bed?" Buffy held her breath, waiting for his answer.

"I told you, it casts a romantic illusion. The Jossie doesn’t just need sex--that’s the province of incubi and succubae. The Jossie is, well, not just a sexual predator, but an emotional, uh, an emotional vampire. It makes its victims love it, so that it drains them of their emotional as well as physical energy."

"Sexually."

"Yes. But the romance," Angel looked away from her, unable to meet her eyes. "I told it I wanted to wait until we were married. Which would have been next week," he added softly.

"Because that’s romantic?" Buffy said bitterly, as all her doubts, soothed by the knowledge that Angel had not slept with the Cordy-shaped demon, suddenly reappeared, stronger than ever. He hadn’t waited until they were married, either time.

"Romance. . ." Angel said ruefully. "It’s nice. Sweet. Fun, even." He returned his gaze to hers, his dark eyes looking directly and unflinching into her own. "But it isn’t hunger. And it isn’t need. And it isn’t passion," he said, his voice stronger. Buffy felt the doubts she’d had melt away.

"So, next week, you’d have married that thing, taken it to bed--"

"--and been drained of all my emotional and sexual energy," he finished for her. "Vampires have a lot of both. It might have taken a while for the Jossie to get everything I had. It would have been very full before it reduced me to dust."

"So, it would have killed you?"

"Eventually," Angel told her. "But that might have taken months or years. So, that wasn’t the real danger, that wasn’t why Whistler had to intervene."

"Then what was? How was the Jossie able to endanger the world?"

"By making me forget. . .by keeping me from protecting the one I was put on earth to protect." His brown eyes met hers once more, the eyes of a puppy that knows it has done something very, very bad and only wants to make up for its crime. How could she possibly resist a look like that?

She remembered the words of the Mhora demon on their lost day: Together you are powerful, apart you are dead.

Buffy gave Angel a rueful smile, as any lingering doubts disappeared, and her anger dwindled to nothing. There was still some residual pain, but she was pretty sure she could deal with that. . .with Angel’s help.

"Well, we can’t let the world end, can we? It being our sacred duty to protect it, and all," she said softly. The look of hope that sprang into his eyes was endearingly pathetic. She couldn’t help but chuckle. However, when he tried to rise from his knees, she had something to say to the matter.

"Not so fast, lover." Buffy purred, undoing her towel. "I think, that while you are on your knees, you should give me a demonstration of just how very, very sorry you truly are."

The look of lust that came into his eyes was so intensely carnal that she couldn’t help but gasp. Desire instantly flooded through her, pushing away the remembered pain, making it all seem meaningless.

It had been so long. . .

He was reaching for her almost before she had unwrapped the towel, setting his strong hands on her firm calves, lifting her legs over his broad shoulders and leaning toward her, pulling her forward in the chair. She lifted her hips to accommodate him, and his mouth found her, cool against her heated flesh.

Hunger. And need. And passion. . .

Buffy gasped again, then let out a low moan as his strong, skillful tongue lashed her swollen clit. He wasn’t going slow, not teasing and playful, and that was good, because the moment he had looked at her like that, she had lost any desire for taking things slow.

She needed him so badly, needed him to erase the pain of the past few hours, of the past few years. And it seemed he needed her just as badly: he was devouring her as if she were the first meal set before a starving man.

His hands were firm on her hips, holding her to his mouth so that she had no choice but to endure whatever he chose for her to endure. Which seemed to be an intolerable amount of pleasure. His tongue and lips and teeth were ruthless against her tiny bud, licking, sucking, nipping voraciously. Buffy was so primed for him, so needy that she found herself on the verge of climax almost immediately. She moaned, twisting her hips in his hands, trying to get closer to his devouring mouth. He responded by changing his attack, abandoning her sensitive clit and licking down her drenching center until he could stab his tongue into her core. She shrieked at the deliciously cold invasion, but didn’t topple over the edge. Angel growled hungrily, lapping up the moisture flowing from her body in response to his ministrations to her flesh. She moaned and writhed, hips twisting in his hands, his name spilling from her lips in a repetitive chant, a litany of desire. She arched off the chair, sitting upright to tangle her hands in his hair, holding him to her throbbing core. He growled again, and pulled her closer. Their new position freed him from the need to hold her hips, and he took immediate advantage of his new freedom. One long, strong finger replaced his tongue as he licked back up to her pulsing clit. A second finger swiftly joined the other as she bucked against his mouth. When he added a third finger, stretching her tight, silken walls to the limit, and bit down gently, Buffy screamed her release, as waves of pleasure crashed over her.

Angel purred in satisfaction as his beloved climaxed for him. He kept up the piston action of his fingers, plunging in and out of her depths, and the pressure of his tongue and teeth on her clit beyond the point where the last tremors of her orgasm ebbed away. She protested half-heartedly, but he ignored her. Within minutes, he could feel the next wave building for her. Sobbing as the incredible pleasure crashed over her once more, Buffy arched her back, pushing harder against his talented mouth, forcing his knowing fingers ever deeper inside her. Once more, he didn't seem disposed to let her rest, to let things come to an end, but continued to suckle and finger her after the spasms of her release had finished. Her third climax began almost before the second had ended, and it was suddenly too much. Buffy struggled not to get closer, but to pull away. She let go of his hair and pushed against his shoulders trying to force him to stop. On the rare occasions when her human lovers had driven her to this point, they had gotten the message rather quickly, and acceded to the Slayer’s demands for a respite.

Angel wasn’t human. He was unmoved by her attempts to disengage herself. And he didn’t need to come up for air. . .

By her fourth orgasm, she was screaming. By the fifth, she was pounding on his shoulders, desperate to get him to stop, to never stop. When the sixth crashed over her, she couldn’t take any more. With a final wail, Buffy collapsed back against the chair, consciousness deserting her.

As his lover went limp around him, Angel slowed his relentless ministrations, coming to a stop. He looked up, and realized what had happened. He couldn’t help but grin in smug satisfaction. He doubted that any of her human lovers had ever pleased her that well. But he couldn’t remain smug for long. The memory of the past few hours, of how badly he had hurt her, came back. Pleasuring her thoroughly was only the start of what he needed to do to make things up to her. Angel stood up, and walked over to the bed, tugging down the covers. Then he returned to the chair, and tenderly scooped Buffy up into his arms, placing her carefully in the center of the bed.

She was glorious, more achingly beautiful than he remembered from their fist time together, if a bit more thin that he remembered from their lost day. The past few years had been hard on her, on both of them. But from the time she must have heard what was going on from Xander until tonight must have been worst of all.

Angel sighed. He recalled an old fairy tale, Hans My Hedgehog, in which, having broken a vow, a young girl puts on a pair of iron shoes, shoes that will not wear out as she traverses the world looking for her beloved, from whom her foolish actions had parted her. Every step she takes is heavy as stone, weighted down by the iron shoes. But so desperate is she to be reunited with the one she loves, that she wears them gladly. Angel understood the meaning and the symbolism behind the old tale.

The Jossie’s spell had done more than threaten Angel’s own life; it had hurt Buffy deeply, reopening wounds that Angel himself, however unwillingly, had inflicted. In order to make it up to her, he would do anything, take on any burden, and endure whatever stone steps were required to make things right between himself and Buffy once more.

Angel returned to get the roses he had brought for her. They were in a crystal vase, which he set on the nightstand by the bed, so that she would see them when she woke. They had never had time for romance, he thought sadly, never time for extravagant gestures and dinners by candlelight, nights spent out dancing, or cuddled together in front of a fire. Their one attempt to see a movie had been interrupted by Faith’s call for Buffy to join her on patrol. The only time he had given her flowers had been when he was evil, and the flowers a warning that he would come for her soon. And the few hours they had spent together on their lost day had been too intense, and too swiftly over, for the lighter, romantic touches she deserved. Now that his soul was anchored, now that they could be together the way they had always wanted to be together, he was determined to give rein to all the romance in his Celtic soul. His Buffy needed, and deserved, to be swept off her feet, to be courted, caressed, and adored. Smiling at the thought, he stripped down, and joined her on the bed.

He had so much to make up to her for. . . he began by kissing every glorious inch of her satin smooth skin, knowing that she would still feel his touch, even though unconscious, and that it would, in the end, enhance her pleasure. He peppered kisses over her eyes and temple, her face and throat. He kissed her slender shoulders, her arms, her collarbone and her ribs. He lingered over her breasts, lovingly, sucking the delicious rose brown peaks of her nipples into his mouth until she stirred, moaning, arching her back and thrusting the tips more firmly into his mouth. Afterward, he kissed his way down her belly to the mound of her womanhood, but knew she was too sensitized for him to linger there long. He kissed, instead, her inner thighs, still damp with her delectable moisture, then down her legs to her dainty ankles and high-arched little feet.

She was still unconscious, but not unresponsive. Her little sighs and gasps told him what she liked, and what she liked even more. With a chuckle, he rolled her over until she was on her belly, then began the whole delicious journey once more, kissing the soles of her feet, the back of her knee, the dimpled globes of her gorgeous ass, the curve of her spine, the back of her neck. She sighed, wriggling closer to him. He smiled, and kissed his way back down.

That she had just taken a bath was pretty clear from the way he had found her. That made the next thing he wanted to do to her possible. He wondered if any of her human lovers had tried this. . .

Buffy climbed slowly up from layers of lovely, velvet darkness. Butterfly soft kisses had covered every inch of her body, and she gasped, yielding to the source. Gradually, she became aware of the kisses going further, going someplace they had never been before.

Buffy came fully awake to the extraordinary sensation of a cold, wet, skilled tongue laving the tight little rosette of her sphincter, while a cold, strong finger pressed knowingly against her once-more swollen clit. Shocked, she wanted to pull away. . .

. . .but it felt so decadently, wickedly, incredibly good that she couldn't bring herself to do so. She just managed one strangled cry of "Angel!" before another orgasm took hold of her, making her quiver and shake against his busy fingers. Her cries were muffled against the pillow as she sobbed her release once more.

This time when he felt her body calm down, Angel didn’t try to continue. He pulled away from her, getting off the bed and pulling the covers over her shaking form. She turned her head to look at him.

"Angel?" she whispered uncertainly. He smiled down at her.

"Shhh my love. I’ll be right back." He went into the bathroom, and Buffy heard the sounds of running water, and, a moment later, that of a toothbrush being used. She smiled, snuggling deeper into the blankets and pillows. He rejoined her a moment later, and she snuggled instead into the cool, firm bulwark of his body.

"Apology accepted," she whispered.

"Thank God!" he said earnestly. His dark brown eyes, looking down at her, were haunted. She remembered all too well how often she had seen the pain in them before. "If I thought I’d lost you. . ." he shuddered. "I don’t know how long it will be before I can forgive myself." Buffy knew then and there that she couldn’t stand to be the source of that pain. So, she put aside her own heartache, and strove for a light tone.

"Hmm. Well, in the interest of having you forgive yourself, let me offer you another penance," she said teasingly, her hazel eyes gazing up at him with all the love and tenderness she held in her heart for him. She allowed the teasing and the lightness to leave. "Do you know how much I missed you? Ached for you? Yes, I took other lovers, because that was what you wanted me to do: to move on with someone who could take me into the light. But it was never enough. None of them were ever you, none of them could make me feel the way you can: complete, whole, home." She drew him into her arms, turning so that she was lying on her back, pulling him over her.

"Make me whole again, Angel," she whispered, parting her thighs for him. "Come home."

His heart ached, hearing the echo of sorrow in her voice. Yes, it had been too long since he had been home, too long for both of them. He moved over her, settling between her parted thighs, his weight resting on his forearms as he hovered over her.

"I don’t want to hurt you," he said.

She smiled up at him ruefully.

"Nothing can hurt me as much as not having you. Please, Angel. It’s been too long."

Her hazel eyes were luminous with tears. It had indeed been too long, too many years since their lost day, far too many since the night of her seventeenth birthday.

He entered her slowly, needing to savor the feel of her. She clung to him, needing to reassure herself that he was with her at last. It was as they both remembered, the intoxicating blend of cold and heat, the incomparable feel of rightness. Completion. Wholeness. Fulfillment. They stayed together unmoving for several moments, just needing to take in the fact that they were at last reunited. This wasn't an ephemeral dream, but a bittersweet reality, too long delayed, and shadowed by the memories of other lovers, other partners with whom each had had to make do while hoping against hope that a miracle would happen, and they would be permitted the grace of being together.

The miracle was here, was now, and it almost overwhelmed them.

Until the sheer hunger they had for each other--a hunger that had developed when she was sixteen, and had increased over time; a hunger never sated, never abated--exploded within them, demanding they complete the union they had begun.

Angel’s mouth covered hers and her lips parted beneath his, allowing his tongue entrance for a demanding lover's duel. She twined her arms about his neck, holding him close, pulling him down. She told him without words that she needed the very thing he feared: his greater weight crushing down on her, pressing her into the mattress, making her feel helpless, owned, possessed.

Something primal in him responded to her unspoken need, and the demon within him surfaced. Buffy moaned, licking her little tongue against his sharp fangs, accepting, even craving, this face of his passion for her. Angel pulled out of the velvet heat gloving him, and thrust back hard. She keened her desire into his mouth, her tongue dueling with his, her hips rising to meet his. Driven by the rising tide of hunger, the need kept too long chained and at bay, he pounded into her relentlessly. Her own hunger matching his, she welcomed the invasion of his flesh into hers, her core rippling around his manhood, caressing him, stroking him, enticing him further into her secret depths. Begun in tenderness, their mating was completed in a storm of passion, a tempest of desire. Quite simply, they had been apart too long to be satisfied by gentleness. And perhaps, there was, unspoken, the need to cleanse each other, to drive from each other’s minds and bodies the very memories of any others who had come between them. The were not making love. They were reclaiming each other, declaring to each other for good and all the primacy each held for the other, the depth of their need, the breadth of their desire.

Hard and hot and fast and furious, the storm within them grew. The bed shook beneath them, and Buffy dimly thought it might crash beneath them, as the table had done so long ago. She didn’t particularly care, turned her attention to more important things, such as the smooth firmness of her lover’s shoulders and back beneath her hands, the delicious abrasion of the hair on his chest against her aroused nipples as her breasts pressed against him, the incredible fullness inside her as her ruthless drove into her tight core.

Her need for him to drive harder, faster, further, her need for his demon to claim her as fully as the man in him did.

The demon inside him was roaring its own hunger, its own need. Angel pulled his mouth from hers, gasping, trying to get control. Buffy, sensing his inner struggle and impatient with it, flung aside her hair, baring her throat to him and pulling his head down with her Slayer's strength until she felt his fangs against the scar.

It was a temptation even the man in him could not refuse. Roaring, Angel sank his fangs into the mark he had placed on her all those years before. Her blood, hot with her life and spiced with her desire, poured into his mouth, the most delicious elixir imaginable. Her heated core clenching him, her blood flooding his mouth, Angel exploded into the most intense release he had ever known.

Her lover was claiming her, his seed pouring into her womb, his fangs drawing her blood, singing, from her veins into his mouth. Buffy exploded with him, clenching around him, keening his name. They rode the storm together, hard and furious, for all the long, glorious moments of their rapture, until the tempest abated, and allowed them to come to rest.

Angel gently withdrew his fangs, licking at the last trickles of ambrosial blood until the tiny wounds closed. He was vaguely conscious that he had collapsed on top of her, and after a moment, he tried to gather the strength to pull away, so that his entire dead weight wasn’t crushing her. Buffy put paid to that idea by tightening her embrace, and keeping him close.

"Don’t leave me," she whispered.

"Never again," he swore, kissing her gently.

They were still joined, and Buffy broke their kiss, to look up at him. She looked sated and replete. . . until she smiled wickedly, and passion once more flared in her eyes.

"I don’t know," she said. "I’ve had a hard day. You might have to convince me of that."

And for the rest of the night, until she fell asleep exhausted and sated in his arms at dawn, that’s exactly what he did.

The End.

Author's EndNote: Because of my devout conviction that B/A must and will be reunited, I was very much not enjoying Carrie’s Just a Stepping Stone until I read her endnotes. I thoroughly agree with her about "how much it would trivialize and diminish B/A if all they become is, well... a stepping stone on a path to a greater love for Buffy and Angel separately."

Greater than Buffy and Angel? The love that survived revelation of their innate, inimical natures as vampire and slayer? That survived the loss of his soul? How is it possible to be greater than a love so strong that it inspired Angel to change from an aimless, purposeless, homeless beggar to a Warrior for Good, restored his sanity after subjective centuries in the torments of Hell, and for which he gave up his second most precious gift, humanity, because it would have cost the life of his most precious gift, Buffy?

It’s no secret that season four has been pure, unmitigated (or, only moderately, briefly, and intermittently mitigated) HELL for ‘shippers. That’s part of why I vented, and created my Jossie, even thought I think Joss Whedon is a master storyteller, whose artistic vision has me in awe. I truly believe that there’s plenty of evidence that the writers aren’t really trying to show that Angel has been replaced in Buffy's affections, so much as that she is attempting to move on (hopefully, for the plot-line and dramatic purpose of learning that she never truly can).

I suppose I’m taking what Carrie said one step further: not only would it trivialize B/A to show them as mere "first love" instead of love forever true, as first loves instead of soul-mates, but the only way that the characters I came to know and love over the course of several years could prefer other partners to each other, would be if they were under the spell of some pretty powerful, evil, magic.

Or acid-tripping, crack-smoking scriptwriters. . . of course.

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