Pairing: Buffy/Angel
Timeline: Future-fic. Any future. Pick one.
Disclaimer: Buffy and Angel aren't mine, and if they were, I wouldn't take credit for it. Lord knows why I'm writing about my two least favorite characters, but some bunnies won't let go.
Date: 04/14/03

If you are a Slayer, and your lover is a vampire, when the time comes and there is no choice left for you but to kill him - when all is said and done, do you sweep up that ash and keep it in an urn, as though his death had been an easy routine cremation rather than a lengthy painful battle?

You do.

And then you sit in the dark, for 30 days, no lights but what reflects from the blueness of that urn, something his partner found, 14th century or so, Chinese most likely. You sit in the dark with a bottle and you drink and you watch the shadows on the porcelain and you do not sleep.

And on the 30th day, you fall asleep and you dream of him, as you've dreamt of him every other night of your life. You hadn't slept to keep these dreams at bay. Now you dream.

When you wake, you step outside and it has been so long, you feel as though you might go up in smoke under the sunlight.

You empty the ashes onto the night-blooming jasmine he planted last year.