====================================================================== EPILOGUE 2 - The Alternate Ending ------------------------------------- Angel watched from a shady alcove near his favorite spot on the beach. He saw Buffy up on the bridge as she waited, the wind blowing her hair as she looked off into the horizon at the ships in the distance. She turned around slowly, as if looking for someone, and her eyes passed him entirely. She hadn't even realized Angel was there. A sting of sadness tugged at his non-beating heart, she used to be able to feel him if he was anywhere near her. Those beautiful eyes of hers, so full of life and anticipation, looking toward something in her future, something happy and warm and welcoming and in sunlight. Her focus shifted to an ivy-covered archway where a man stepped through. He was tall, though not as tall as Angel, and he carried himself with confidence and joy as he rushed toward Buffy and took her in his arms. "That was a brave and wonderful thing you did, Champion." The shadowy figures of the Oracles seemed to shimmer about him. "Removing that day from all but your memory saved many lives, but it cost you much, including a dear friend's life and your humanity," they glanced at Buffy, "and more." "Yeah, well, she deserves to be happy, and, as much as I hate to admit it, so does he." Angel looked away from them. It hurt a little more than he thought it would to see her so happy with him, wrapped in his arms, kissing him with such passion. The sunlight danced off her hair as the wind swept it about them, leaving tendrils of gold mixed in with the bleached blonde of his. A leather-clad arm slid around Buffy's waist as they walked further out onto the pier, the open black duster flapping in the breeze like wings. At the end of the pier they sat down, their feet dangling over the ocean, relaxed and carefree. "Big bad, indeed," Angel scoffed quietly to himself. The gentle voice of the Oracle continued, "And this was worth hunting down a Mohra demon again?" Angel rubbed the still sore muscles of his left arm as he looked out at Buffy once again and said wistfully, "Oh yes." He forced his mood to something lighter, "And, who knows, maybe there is a market for regenerative blood." He took a moment, gazing at the lovers on the pier, "They both deserve this," Angel said quietly as an afterthought. More confidently, he confessed to the Oracles, "I still have my memories of us together from our one day, and she'll have happiness and as normal a life as a Slayer can have, and a longer life with him at her side in human form than she would have had with me. I can stay in the shadows and help when I'm needed, but," he almost sighed, "now, she needs him more. She needs him like this more, and he can be the man he was meant to be instead of a monster trying to be a man." Angel smiled sadly to himself and then up at the Oracles. Their lilting voices spoke in unison as if making a proclamation to the world instead of just to him, "Humans make so little sense, but perhaps the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands in moments of challenge and controversy. Perhaps a good man, a true champion, is one who finds his strength in adversity and his happiness in the joy of others, no matter the cost to himself." In the long silence that followed he looked at Buffy and William, playful, happy, delighting in each other as if nothing ugly could ever touch them. The transformation in them both was astonishing and made Angel's burden a little lighter. "Perhaps so," he said, with a gleam in his eye. "Now ... about my watch ..." FIN Review this story here. Site Design by WebElegant Design Graphics by LuminEssence Web Publishing