Damn. Where'd he go? Angel's eyes probed through the darkness of the sewers determined to find the wily vampire that had escaped their notice. Determined not to look into her eyes. Not after that dream about their wedding… not now that he had finally made the decision.

"Couldn't we just let this be the vamp that got away? We could say he was this big." Her words cut into his thoughts, a startling reminder that she was really here, walking by his side. That she would always be with him.

"What can I say? I need closure." Closure...

"You need clothes. You don't have a tux, do you?" Yes, closure, but how... Huh?

"Since when did patrolling go black tie?"

"For the Prom, silly."

Oh no, not this again. Especially not now that he had decided to...

"We have more important things to think about right now than a dance, Buffy." Damn, that had come out harsher than he had intended. It was just that he had so much on his mind; this prom thing was just going to make everything all the more difficult.

"Sorry Giles. I'll just be quiet."

Oh hell, she was upset. Of course she was, he had just been a complete jerk to her. Dammit, he hated knowing she was mad with him. He could stand anything but her dislike.

"Come on, don't be that way," he apologised.

Saved by the vampire. It caught them by surprise, pouncing from behind Buffy, but she instantly whipped around, disposing of the demon swiftly with an impatient "Not now", and a quick stake through the heart.

How different she was from the scared little girl she had begun as. Now she was the Slayer, strong and confident. She had survived more dangers and sorrows than any other Slayer he had heard of, and yet she still maintained the innocence and beauty that made her human. Human. That was the key word, Angel. She is the Slayer, strong and human. And you are a vampire, weak and lifeless.

She turned back to face him again, her eyes staring squarely into his. He could not hope to avoid them any longer.

"I'm not being that way. Every time I say the word 'prom' you get grouchy." Yeah, she was mad.

"I'm sorry, I'm just worried that you're getting too... invested in this whole thing." Please, let that be enough. He was not ready to do this yet.

"What whole thing? Isn't this the stuff that I'm supposed to get invested in? Going to a formal, graduating, growing up." She was on the defence, and she was going to want answers, he could feel it. Still, he didn't want to explain that 'this whole thing' meant their relationship. Open that door, and there would be no escape.

"I know." All those things that she had listed - they were the problem. She would grow up and want to experience life. A life she could never have with him... Why was this already so agonisingly difficult?

"Then what? What's with the dire?"

No, not now, not now, he kept repeating to himself, as though if he thought it enough times, he could somehow will the moment away. He hadn't had time to plan this out yet. To summon the courage.

"It's uh, it's nothing." He whirled around to avoid her eyes. Those beautiful sparkling eyes...

"No, you have 'something' face." Damn, she sensed it, and now there was no chance of turning back.

"I think we need to talk, but not now and not here." He knew she would not be satisfied with that.

"No, no, if you have something to say, then say it."

Silence. He was going to have to tell her now, wasn't he?

"Angel, drop the cryptic. You're scaring me."

Angel sighed inwardly. So it was really happening. He turned around again to face her again.

"I've been thinking... about our future." Our future - how wonderful that felt... No, don't feel, Angel. Think.

"And the more I do, the more I feel like us, you and me, being together, is unfair to you." He couldn't believe the words were actually making their way out of his mouth. He didn't think he was strong enough.

Stunned, and overwhelmed by an eerie sense of foreboding, Buffy sought refuge in denial.

"Is this about what the Mayor said? Because he was just trying to shake us up." Her eyes were almost pleading, begging for Angel to believe her, to stop before it was too late. She didn't realise that that was exactly what he was doing. Before it was too late.

"He was right." Yes, as odd as it might seem, Angel had been rammed into reality by their enemy. Oh sure, he knew the Mayor was merely trying to play with their minds, to weaken them by breaking them apart. But whatever his motives, his words had rung with the halting screech of truth. The truth that both he and Buffy had been ignoring for too long: they could not be together. He would not do that to her, not anymore.

"No, no he wasn't. He's the bad guy."

In that moment, Angel was touched by her still innocent view of the world as being so simple as black and white. She would soon discover that the world was an entire ocean of grey, and he regretted that he would not be there to hold her hand as she swam through it, as he had always planned. But in truth, he knew she was ready to face the tide alone. It was him that was not ready to let go.

He looked her in the eyes, and was surprised to see such fear in them. It was as though she knew what was about to come.

"You deserve more. You deserve something outside of demons and darkness." Outside of all Angel could ever offer. Now came the dreaded part. The part he needed to say, if only just to hear himself saying it, so that he would be forced to realise that this was real.

"You should be with someone who can take you into the light." Someone else, someone who was not him, another man, Angel. Buffy with someone else. Your Buffy with another man...

No! He would do this. For her.

"Someone who can make love to you." Could she hear his heart screaming?

She stepped forward, closing the gap between them, an attempt to deny the event unfolding.

"I don't care about that."

She sounded so sure of herself, with those big blue eyes staring up into his, desperate to make him believe something that he knew in time, she herself, would not.

"You will. And children."

"Children? Can you say jumping the gun? I kill my goldfish."

At any other time, Angel would have smiled. He was glad she had retained that innocent unbruised sense of humour, even after all the terrors she had witnessed. She had grown up so much in the past three years, much too fast. Joyce was right to have approached him. They both knew that if he were to stay with Buffy, he would force her to grow up still more before her time. He would bring darkness into those eyes that took his breath away every time they touched his own. He would be the cause of destroying the very things about her that he so loved, and he would hate himself for that.

Or worse, she would hate him.

"Today. But you have no idea how fast it goes, Buffy. Before you know it, you'll want it all, a normal life."

A normal life. He didn't even know what that was like any more. He did not want her to forget too. It was ironic, it really was. The one who would love her most in her life, more that she could ever imagine, would, if he stayed, be the one whom she would grow to resent the most, more than he wanted to imagine. So he had to leave, in truth, for himself.

"I'll never have a normal life."

Buffy's voice faltered with choking tears, but she stood her ground determinedly. Strong as always. Well, he would be strong this once too. She hadn't let him take the easy way on that hilltop at Christmas, and he wouldn't let himself take the easy way now, here in the sewers.

It was symbolic in a way, that this should take place here, in the dark and stench of the underground; the only thing he would ever lead her to. It was in such a sewer that he had decided, standing there a long time ago with Whistler, that he would go above and enter the Slayer's life. The day he was reborn. And now, three years later, here he stood in the sewers again, but this time he had brought her down with him. Some Angel he was. Appropriate then that it was in such a place that he decided to leave the Slayer's life. Even though it would mean the end of his own.

No, he had been selfish for long enough. He had had his perfect happiness, and now it was time to pay the price: to endure the rest of eternity with only the sweet memory of what he had once had the undeserved fortune to possess. Her, his Slayer...

"Right, you'll always be a Slayer. But that's all the more reason why you should have a real relationship instead of this, this freak show." Oh God! What had he said?! Her face… Had he inflicted such tremendous hurt in those eyes? Those beautiful, magical eyes? No! No...

"I didn't mean that."

She was upset, deeply wounded.

"I'm gonna go." She spun around, hastening to leave.

No, Buffy, you have to understand. His mind was a confusion of guilt and pain and sorrow and heartache… and love. No - that was he only part he actually understood. He grabbed her arm to stop her from fleeing, pulling her around to face him.

"I'm sorry." So desperately sorry, my love. "Buffy, you know how much I love you. It kills me to say this."

It kills me to look into your beautiful eyes and know that I have caused such pain and sorrow. It kills me to hold your arm like this and stop myself from sweeping you into my own arms and keeping you safe next to me forever. It kills me to leave you, the one who has given meaning to my sorry life, and know that one day it will be another man who will look into those eyes, another man who will hold you close, another man who will be with you forever. It kills me over and over, but I would die a thousand such deaths, Buffy.

Because I know I am saving you.

"Then don't." Her eyes bore into his with a fierceness that would have broken him under any other circumstances.

"Who are you to tell me what's right for me? You think I haven't thought about this?" She was furious, hurt, frustrated. Scared.

In a way, he secretly wanted her to convince him to stay. To somehow soothe all the wounds of their relationship and assure him that she could not survive without him. For sometimes, in shameful contradiction to his very reasons for freeing her from his presence, he was also left desolate at the thought of her continuing her life without him. Because that would confirm what he already knew to be true: she did not need him. And that hurt more than he knew it should - because of how absolutely, how consumingly, how nakedly, he needed her.

But she was young. It was only right, only fair, for her to move on. To forget him. While he would spend every second of the rest of his meagre existence, remembering her.

In an unconscious attempt to block his pain, Angel looked at the situation wearing the hat of responsibility.

"Have you, rationally?"

At this, her resentment flared. He didn't have to see her face burn with anger; he could smell the rage emanating from her blood in tidal waves.

"No, no of course not. I'm just some swoony little school girl, right?"

She was right to be angry. In trying to make this easier on himself, he had gone too far. His accusation had been undeservedly unfair - no, further; it had been blatantly false.

For, ever since his return from Hell, it had been Buffy who had done all the rational thinking in their relationship. He, Angel, the oh-so wise immortal, had spent day after purposeless day pining after her, longing for her, needing her with him and suffering silently in the agony of isolation. Hell had changed him, forever.

Hundreds of horrific years, undergoing all forms of unspeakable physical and mental tortures. He still could not remember everything - he prayed he never would - but one thing remained clear in his mind. He knew the only thing that had allowed him to survive down there, was the thought of her. Whenever the pain had been too excruciating to bear, or when he had been searching for a reason to keep hanging on, or worst, when he had needed to occupy his mind during those terrifyingly still silences of anticipation between torture sessions, he would turn to her for strength. Sometimes, the pain would actually dissolve away with the memory of her.

Finally, in the later years, 'they' had come to realise his trick. Thus had begun the mind games, when they would put her in his dreams… and turn them into nightmares. Eventually though, he had learned how to distinguish between their her and his her. And so they had still been unable to destroy him.

So when he had returned to Earth to find the real her - to touch her and smell her and taste her… It was Heaven. Seeing her for the first time again then, standing before him in the flesh; it was like finally walking into the light at the end of the tunnel; feeling it warm his skin, breathing it into his blood, absorbing its scent to become one with his own. The light that had guided him through all those hellish years of darkness. It was strange; the mere sight of her had spurred an immediate return to sanity, and a feeling of security had swept over him, assuring him that he was safe, that this was reality. The joy, the fulfilled longing, had been too much for him to contain; he had collapsed onto his knees, clutching her legs tightly, determined never to let her go. Yes, that was Heaven.

Before their passion had turned him into Angelus, he loved Buffy. But now, after Hell, after Heaven, he worshipped her, lived for her… his soul was in her body. And that is why he had been so infinitely devoted to her all year. Because when she was not near, the nightmares, the fear, the tortures, would all flood back to drown him.

Oh God, how could he possibly survive without her?

She had no idea - how could she? How could she know how devastating it had been for him when she left him after the incident with Spike. He could handle being 'friends', he could handle the seemingly endless days of waiting for her to visit him - he could even handle 'Scott'. But to ask him to be without her… that was too much for him then. Hell had sucked all the strength from him so that all that remained was an all-consuming desperate, breathless need. For her.

So no, she was no little schoolgirl. She was his saviour. And indeed, she had been the wise one all along, knowing even back then that they should be apart. But again, he had pulled her back down into the darkness with him. She had known all the time what he had only lately been strong enough to realise. And now it was time to finally do something about it.

"I'm trying to do what's right here, OK? I'm trying to think with my head instead of my heart." Head, Angel, head. Be strong.

"Heart?" She questioned in hurt accusation, stepping closer to him. "You have a heart? It isn't even beating!"

Now that was too much, and she knew it. Why did they always keep hurting each other like this?

"Don't." He was so close to the edge, he could almost feel the wind whipping past his body in fall. No Angel, keep standing.

Tears were streaming freely down her cheeks now, tempting the ones behind his own eyes so that his mind became consumed by the single thought of keeping those drops at bay. Because if they fell, so would he.

"Don't what?" She said, still in the same pained accusing tone. "Don't love you? I'm sorry. You know what? I didn't know I got a choice in that."

He had never seen her like this before; struggling, grasping. For beneath that hard front, she was crumbling inside. She knew this was the end.

"I'm never gonna change. I can't change."

She had always struggled with the burden of her destiny, rejecting her duty or taking it on grudgingly. Now her words were no longer full of resignation or resentment. They were of acceptance. She was the Slayer, and truthfully, he knew she would not have it any other way.

And that was why she no longer needed him.

"I want my life to be with you."

There you go, Angel. This is the point of no return. Be strong. For her.

"I don't." There, he had done it.

The stunned expression on her face told him everything. Well, at least soon he would be gone and no longer able to hurt her like this.

"You don't want to be with me?" A part of him screamed desperately out to reveal that he was lying to make it easier on her. The part that he quickly hushed.

"I can't believe you're breaking up with me."

Is that all he was doing? The term seemed too trivial, too simple for what was really taking place. His slow death.

Angel felt that other part tugging at his heart in a sudden urge to assure her of his love, to tell her one last time, so she knew...

It doesn't mean that I don't - "

Buffy quickly spun around, silencing him, and walked a few steps away, in a stubborn show of distance.

...love you. Yes, that was unfair of him. He had no right to say that to her now - or ever again...

Turning back around to face him, her quiet, almost childlike words broke his heart.

"How am I supposed to stay away from you?"

Here it comes, Buffy. Please understand.

"I'm leaving. After the Ascension, after it's finished with the Mayor and Faith. If we survive, I'll go."

Suddenly, it struck him that it would be hard to find the drive for this battle. Every other time he had had something to live for. Her. Now, it didn't matter if he survived or not - he would meet the same fate either way. He quickly shoved the thought aside to lament over later, during one of the countless solitary moments he knew his life would soon be full of.

Buffy did not seem too surprised; she had probably foreseen this plan.

"Where?"

"I don't know." He had not had the chance to draw details yet. More to the point, he hadn't wanted to.

After a long quiet, her tiny voice echoed the beat booming in his mind.

"Is this really happening?"

Silence.

They stood staring across at each other for what seemed like years; eyes conveying meanings that words could never express. Their bond had strangely always seemed to surpass sound. Finally, she could not stand the pain in her eyes any longer. She gave a slight nod to signal the closure Angel needed, and then she turned around and walked away. Angel stood still, staring gravely after her, his heart numbed by the realisation that suddenly engulfed him.

He was alone once more.