Flight by SCWLC

 

Summary: A little post-Gift angst that came to me while listening to Maren Ord sing “Perfect”.

Disclaimer: Does anyone posting on a fanfic site or board own anything? If there is anyone it aint me.

Rating: Lordee I’m bad at these, umm, G? PG?

Notes: This was written in less than half an hour. I’m not going to polish it.

Angel sat on the plane, waiting for it to lift off. He remembered just three years earlier when he had told Buffy that flying was just too great a risk. Three years since they had last been truly happy. Two since they had been a couple. One since they had been truly together on a day that never happened.

He had arranged for the flight to be an overnight one. He wouldn’t get caught by the sun. Ironically, that had been his first thought when Willow had told him about Buffy dying. Now he was on a flight to get away from it. The pain, the responsibilities, the memories and a grave sitting so silently in Sunny Rest cemetery.

As the plane began to taxi along the runway Angel tensed. It was, after all, the first time he had ever flown. He thought for a moment about how Buffy would chuckle and ask how a vampire could be afraid of a plane crash.

The thought sobered him instantly. She would never giggle and joke at his expense again. He closed his eyes against the pain, and felt himself pushed back in his seat as the machine gained speed to launch itself into the sky. He wondered if Buffy had liked flying. Had she wanted to take a plane on her honeymoon? Or was she more of a cruise person? He would never know. Not that he would have known otherwise. He had left her so that she could have a normal life, had turned back time so she could go on without him, had handed her over to Riley for her own happiness. Now he had no chance to rectify all the mistakes he had made, all those choices he had taken from her.

A barely controlled sob rose in his throat, and Angel reached for the headphones left him by the stewardess. If he was lucky, the music could distract him from thoughts of Buffy. After all, he couldn’t break down. Not yet. Not until he was somewhere alone where he could be weak. The radio announcer finished his canned routine and announced the song, Maren Ord’s “Perfect”

//Don't close your eyes
They may not open
What if they open
Would you be alive//

The soft words reminded him of Willow’s not-so-subtle search for a resurrection spell. He had almost offered to help. Had only not done so because Buffy deserved her rest. She deserved the peace she had not gotten in life.

//Everyone falls
But not everyone rises
Why don't you get up
And rise again for me//

Maybe if he had turned her he wouldn’t be here now, mourning her death. He felt irrational anger storm through him. Xander had saved her life before. He had followed her to the Master’s lair and had performed CPR. She had died then, Kendra’s calling testified to that, but she had also come back. Why hadn’t she come back this time?

//What if the world were
a little more perfect
Would you stop crying or
would you take the leap?//

Willow had told him how she had leapt to her death. There had been a tower. He had visited it, trying to feel the moment, the instant she had died. It was there his soulmate’s life had ended. She had vanished from the Earth there.

//What if the world
were a little more perfect
Would you open your eyes
and blink again for me?//

Maybe if he had been there he could have saved her. Spike had told him all about Doc. The demon that had wound up cutting Dawn open and starting the apocalypse. Maybe if he’d been there he could have stopped it. Doc couldn’t have stood up to two vampires. They would have killed him, Dawn wouldn’t have been cut, and Buffy could have come back to his arms.

Or not. She wouldn’t have done that because they were over. At his behest. What if she had jumped because she needed him there as a friend?

//What about friendship?
What about friends?//

Maybe it was her friends’ fault. Willow had been bemoaning the fact that she hadn’t noticed how depressed Buffy was, and Spike had been going on about the ‘Slayer death wish’.

//You said the whole world
was against you
And it all had to end//

Maybe it had been the strain of so many years of torment on his poor beloved. Her parent’s divorce, becoming the Slayer, losing her friends, the move to a hellmouth, him. He was the cause of most of her anguish after all. He had become evil and tormented her, her friends, her Watcher, her mother and sister, and countless other people she had been helpless to protect. Those months of torture had left their mark.

Leaving her had left its mark. As had coming back from Hell, and hitting her in Faith’s defence. God, he wished there had been some way he could have avoided it. Buffy couldn’t be blamed for snapping at that point.

Dawn had said that she had seemed almost happy to jump though. What had happened that had made the vivacious girl he had fallen in love with want to commit suicide?

//What about love?
What about family?
What about all that
you have to live for//

The word made him wince. Suicide. Such an ugly concept paired with Buffy. She had a sister who loved her, friends, a Watcher who treated as the daughter he never had, and him.

Oh yeah. She didn’t have him. She also didn’t have Riley from what he’d gathered. He had asked around, assuming the soldier was in the hospital or something. Turns out the boy had dumped her after she caught him with vampire whores. Angel decided then that if he ever saw the boy again he’d flay him alive.

//What if the world were
a little more perfect
Would you stop crying or
would you take the leap?//

Maybe if he had been there she’d have been happy. Or Riley. If Riley had stayed, maybe she could have managed to sacrifice Dawn instead. Giles had told him one of the reasons Buffy had done it was to avoid going through what she had gone through with Acathla all over again. If someone had been there for her she might have been able to pull through.

//What if the world
were a little more perfect
Would you open your eyes
and blink again for me?//

All he wanted was to see her again. One more time. Just one. To tell her everything he should have told her when she was alive, everything he had thought he’d have the time to tell her before. Just one more chance to hold her and feel her in his arms. Just so he could memorize how she felt.

So that he could ask her how she could leave him like this.

//It isn't easy here without you
Why did you leave me?
What am I supposed to do?
(without you)//

He could hear her voice now, dripping with irony, asking him why it was okay for him to leave her but not for her to leave him. He had no answer but that at least he hadn’t commit suicide. Which was instantly rebuffed by one word. Christmas. The only difference there was that the Powers that Be had intervened on his behalf.

//What if the world were
a little more perfect
Would you stop crying or
would you take the leap?//

He was so much more worthless than her, why hadn’t they saved up that miracle and helped Buffy instead? Why had they brought him back from Hell, allowed Darla to be raised from the dead, and hadn’t done a thing for Buffy. Why had everything always hurt his love who’s only crime had been to love him?

The song wound to a close, and Angel realised he was drawing attention with his silent tears. He yanked off the headset and leaned back in his uncomfortable seat to try to sleep for the rest of the flight. Maybe he could find some balance once he was away from everything that reminded him of her.

//What if the world
were a little more perfect
Would you open your eyes
and blink again for me?

For me//