Title: Here’s to Hoping
Author: Scorch
Posted:
Email
Rating: PG-13
Category: Mild Angst (funny for us!) Angel’s POV
Content: B/A (trust me) C/A
Summary: Companion to The Oscar Goes To…
Spoilers:
Disclaimer: The characters in the Angelverse were created by Joss Whedon & David Greenwalt. No infringement is intended, no profit is made.
Distribution: AO, Cal, Lil n Lio’s place
Notes: I couldn’t help it, I needed to put the ex in place!!
Thanks/Dedication:
Feedback:Yes please.
God, how could I get myself into this mess? There’s one simple answer really and that being the very well known fact of my idiocy. I am an idiot, there I’ve said and to tell the truth, I don’t feel much better.
I thought if… I don’t know what I was thinking, wait yes I do. I was thinking if this could work with someone like her then maybe I could start hoping again. So many take hope for granted and when the ability to hope is gone it seems everything else goes with it.
But it wasn’t her who gave me hope back, it wasn’t her that gave me something to live for and it isn’t her who I live for. Once upon a time she was everything to me and once upon a time she did give me hope but she was also the one to take away my hope.
“Look at me” she says, her voice low and unsurprisingly threatening.
I raise my head, turning a pitifully apologetic gaze on her as I say I’m sorry. What does that word mean anymore? A thousand or more times those words have left my mouth and it sickens me to know it’s become an automatic response, that I’m not sure I even mean it when I say them to her.
“How could you?” the demanded question falls from pouting, shaking lips and glistening eyes.
I barely hear it through the ringing in my ears, she really does have a hard hit.
“I left my friends for you” she yells, I wince as her voice raises high.
I left the woman I now know is the one and you’re talking about your friends? Do I say this to her? Not likely, after the name I said an hour ago in bed, I ain’t arguing back.
“Say something”
“What do you want me to say?” I ask quietly, all I want is to get the hell out of this room and kill something. Mainly myself.
Small, deceptively harmless hands rub down her red face as she tries to hide the tears of loathing, hate and humiliation. Fingers push her hair away from her face as she clamps down on the urge to hit me. Again. “Tell me that was a mistake” is she begging?
“I’m sorry” there’s those words again and there’s no more meaning in them then there was the first ten times I said them. She’s not stupid, she knows I don’t and can’t be sorry for something I had no control over. That’s the problem, I did have control over this. If I’d been honest with her and myself then none of this would have happened.
“Stop saying that” she yells again and again I wince. “How long?”
“I don’t…” my answer is cut off.
“How long?” there’s a pause in her words.
I take a deep, calming breath that has no effect whatsoever as I prepare for the world to fall off my shoulders. “A year now” the admittance feels good even if it is directed to the woman whose heart I’ve probably broken.
She nods “A year” her voice is soft, quiet and delicate as she silently ponders over my answer. “A year, Angel, you knew all this time and you still let me believe… I can’t believe this. I can’t believe you”
“Neither can I” I hear my reply, hear the sarcasm dripping from my tongue and still I can’t believe I just talked back to her. Only my actions prevent me from laughing at the fact I feel like I just backchatted my mother. “I think it’s better if I leave” I need to go and find out if I’m too late.
“You’re going to her, aren’t you?” it’s a realisation, not a question. “You walk out that door Angel and that is it. We are finished, you won’t get another chance” she’s lying there and that is sad. She would take me back and we both know it but if it makes her feel better then I’ll let her believe her own lie.
“I need to, Buffy” I watch as her resolve to let me go all but crumbles as rationality sets in.
“Angel” she states with authority and nervously wrings her hands as she fears the inevitable outcome. “We can work on this, I know we can” her voice is full of something I’ve come to fear in the last hour. “This is us” she must hate the way she’s pleading with me “You and me”
“Buffy” I plead with her to stop now, I can’t take this anymore, and I can’t sit here while whatever hope I may have left diminishes a little more every second. “Stop this” my voice is harder now “You and I both know we were over the moment I left Sunnydale” it’s startling just how true that statement is.
“No, it wasn’t… Isn’t over” I watch as realisation of how she’s acting washes over her face. Silence falls between us and she begins to pace in slow, measured footsteps.
The silence goes on longer and I get ansty.
“I have to go Buffy” I need to go see if I have hope left “She won’t wait” she has a life that she likes to live and she will not put that life on hold while I realise I’ve made what could arguably be the biggest mistake of my life.
“Even now you’re thinking of her” she’s been strangely calm, I’m nervous. “Fine” she relents a little too easily “Go”
Nothing more is said while I get dressed and go to see if there’s hope left in the world.
End of #2