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William put his heart and soul into the rehearsals, he had a feeling this was something very special.

Coming out of the auditorium he could see dawn breaking over the Garden. His nights were filled with music and his days with acting.
He knew he was a success on earth, but here he felt peace. No matter what he did he was judged on his actions and not on how much money he made, in fact there wasn’t any money.

He thought back to the day he’d had with the lawyers, trying to sort out all the problems with Anya. Of course he was going to have to put his hands in his pocket and pay, but every time things seemed sorted she asked for more. He was getting angrier and angrier at her, and it wasn’t helping the situation at all.

Xander and Lorne were busy with their own lives, and sometimes he felt he had no-one to talk to, Anya was working for Xander, so he couldn’t unload there. Of all the things he missed with Buffy - and he missed a lot - having her to talk to, having her common sense approach available to him, was the thing he missed the most, along with her smile, and her laugh, and the way she crinkled her nose when she was thinking.

He reached for a cigarette; thinking about Buffy always made him depressed. He was smoking more, and he knew that she would hate that. He was drinking more: God, he knew she’d shout at him for that one.
But no drugs, he couldn’t break his promise again.

William took a deep drag on the cigarette, filling his lungs with nicotine and steadying his nerves and took his normal walk over towards the hospital. He stood by his normal tree and watched.

‘You could be accused of stalking,’ a voice said by his side.

‘Morning Angel,’ Spike said.

‘Watching her again?’

‘Ye, just need to make sure she’s OK. Got a problem with that?’ answered William, watching as Buffy went from bed to bed.

‘No, as long as you don’t do anything stupid.’

‘Think I’ve done enough stupid for one lifetime, don’t you?’

Angel and Spike sat and watched as Buffy went from bed to bed, talking to the occupants. Everywhere she went there were smiles. She spread light in the darkness.

‘After being her lover, how could you stoop to being her friend?’ he blurted out.

‘What?’

‘O to part now, and parting now,
Never to meet again.
To have done for ever, I and thou,
With joy, and so with pain.

It is too hard, too hard to meet
As friends, and love no more,
Those other meetings were too sweet,
That went before.

And I would have, now love is over,
An end to all, an end;
I cannot, having been your lover,
stoop to become your friend.’

‘What was that?’

‘A poem, learnt it at school, but how could you ‘stoop to being her friend?’

‘Oh it wasn’t easy, and it felt like sheer hell when I came here. I hated her with a passion for the first hundred years up here, but problem is, hate is reflected back at you, it’s like living with a permanent looking glass into your heart, making it a living, or unliving, hell.
I hated the way she made me feel, hated the fact that she made me feel, hated the scars on her face every time I looked at her, but hate is the partner to love, and in hating, I still felt for her, that’s how Giles got to me. They, the powers, showed me what it could have been like if I’d learned to love properly, seems I’ve always had problems with loving, always been jealous.
So they showed me what could have been, then when I was ready to start accepting, they showed me where I should have been and what I should have been suffering. That hurt, really hurt. I should have been burning, suffering what I inflicted on others but I wasn’t; then they showed me why I wasn’t in some pit in hell for all eternity, because she begged for her husband, not because she loved me but because it was the right thing to do. Because she couldn’t see anything else happening, she is and always has been a good soul.’

‘And you became friends?’

‘And we became friends: it took a long time. She, didn’t want to see me, it hurt too much, she didn’t want to talk with me, I spent 40 years trying to prove myself worthy of her notice. I watched her grow and develop here, and she gave it all up to be reborn, into that awful family, in hope of leading them back to the light. In hope that as long as she was the only one really hurt, their souls would be saved.’

‘Couldn’t you have stopped that man from hurting her in the first place?’ Spike asked angrily.

‘I wish we could but that was his choice, and that is something we all have, free choice.’

They sat in silence and watched their angel.

Buffy looked out of the window. She could see the red glow from a cigarette and knew HE was there. She could feel him, and it made her feel warm: maybe he still did care. She went to the next bed and started reading a story to the young girl in it.


William could feel the day coming and could feel himself waking up. Like so often with tears on his pillow for the idiot he’d been and the stupid mistakes he’d made.

Buffy spent her days contentedly. And while Mr Gordo sat, or lay, enjoying the sun, she worked at the school day in and day out.
Her little office was frequented by the desperate, the helpless and the needy. And the bullies, sent there to try and get straight. She was getting the reputation as an excellent counsellor.

So it was little surprise when Robin called her into his office. ‘Buffy, glad you could spare me a few minutes,’ he said as she took a seat in the sunlit room.

‘I need to ask you to do me a favour. Would you consider taking on a private client? There’s a young girl in grade school, a lot younger than your normal clientele, but she needs someone to talk to. Her parents have been killed and she’s stuck in her grief.’

Buffy’s heart went out to the poor child. ‘Where and when do I meet her?’ She asked.

Robin smiled. ‘I thought McDonalds, this afternoon, if you can spare the time. Her name is Dawn Anne Doyle, and she’s six.’

Buffy looked at Robin. ‘And what do you get out of this?’

‘A date with that friend of yours, Faith? Or at least an introduction?’ He smiled at Buffy, he’d been trying to meet her friend for months.

‘She’ll eat you alive.’

‘Maybe, but what a way to go!!’ He grinned.

‘Ring Dawn’s folks and tell them 5pm, McDonalds, is fine.’

‘Thanks, Buffy.’

‘Now if you don’t mind, Mr. Wood, I’ve got a teenage pregnancy and a fight between two of the jocks to sort out.’

‘Very well Miss Summers, and Buffy?’

‘Yes?’ she said as she was leaving.

‘Thanks,’ he said quietly.

‘You’re welcome.’





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