Notes: Written for the Whedonverse AU Ficathon to specific requests. Please note that since this story is AU, Buffy and Angel are both normal humans.

Painting Dreams With Time

Remember how it used to be
when the sun would fill the sky
remember how we used to feel
those days would never end
those days would never end

Remember how it used to be
when the stars would fill the sky
remember how we used to dream
those nights would never end
those nights would never end

It was the sweetness of your skin
it was the hope of all we might have been
that filled me with the hope to wish
impossible things
to wish impossible things

But now the sun shines cold
and all the sky is grey
the stars are dimmed by clouds and tears
and all I wish
is gone away
all I wish
is gone away

To Wish Impossible Things, The Cure

He puts his paintbrush to the canvas and lets it flow along the curve of her cheek. He knows it so well he can almost close his eyes and let his memory guide the stroke of the fine-haired brush. A blush of pink to brighten her cheeks, a faint shadow beneath the darker pink of her mouth, the delicate mix of blue and gray and green that give her eyes shape and color. He always paints them with the innocence and laughter that used to sparkle there like the light of the stars, and they never stare back at him with secrets and depths that he will never know.

.......................................................................................................................

The thick bristles of the brush pass through the honeyed shimmer of her hair, and she stares at her reflection without truly seeing. Somewhere in the back of her mind, there is a time and place she can scarcely remember now, a place where the sun shone and the birds sang and she laughed in fields of deep green grass and tangled in the arms of her lover beneath the arbor of the summer sky.

She thinks about that place sometimes, thinks about how the moon always seemed so large as it loomed over them on those endless summer nights, recalls the sound of the surf as it pounded against the sand and murmured with the beat of their hearts.

Buffy can remember, oh yes. Every detail, down to the very words they whispered, the way their mouths trembled when their lips met for the very first time. She remembers it as one remembers a treasured dream, memory placed in a heart-shaped box beneath the bed of her soul, to be cherished and looked at on the most beloved and special of occasions. She remembers it all.

But she never looks at it anymore.

Sometimes she thinks it must have happened to someone else.

.......................................................................................................................

They sleep side by side, the space of miles in the few feet that separate their backs. Angel waits until her breath becomes slow and measured and then he slips from between the pristine white sheets. Once they’d slept on smooth cotton that smelled sweetly of their mingled scents… now they prickle, uncomfortable against his skin, stiff and sterile with the starch she uses to try to forget. The entire house is too clean now, too well maintained, and sometimes he thinks the furniture and its shining surfaces are all that keeps her from falling apart completely.

.......................................................................................................................

Fall is golden, but empty. The trees are on fire and catch at the edges of the lake that reflects their blaze, but even they do not know for whom they burn. He twists the paintbrush and squints his eyes, and adds a line of deep crimson. It drips and blurs, smearing; the color of the blood that ran from her side and took joy and vitality with it.

He can remember when it was different. Remember a bright-faced shining girl with hope in her heart and laughter on her lips. And now there is only the silence between them, like an abyss that grows, devouring them one tiny moment at a time. Sometimes he wonders if there will be anything left.

.......................................................................................................................

The past… January 2001

Five years in the force on the streets of LA can make any man turn bitter, and Angel is no different.

Langley keeps telling him to give it some time; everyone goes into mourning when their first partner retires. A few sessions with the psychologist, a few moments of sharing his feelings and dealing with the finality of it and then he’ll be right back on his feet again, she insists. But as he sits before his desk—more accurately, confined to his desk until his period of mourning has ended—shuffling papers and contemplating memories of his patrols on the streets, he thinks maybe he doesn’t want to get better. He thinks maybe he doesn’t want a new partner. In his apartment there are tubes of tempera and textured brushes that long to feel the touch of his hand and taste the rough skin of canvas.

“Angel.”

Kate’s voice, and he doesn’t turn immediately, still caught in the eddy and swirl of his melancholy thoughts, not quite willing to put them away. He stares at the paperwork and wonders what he’s doing here, feeling suddenly like a stranger who has awoken to find himself in a life arranged for him by outside forces. It’s a moment of clarity, and he can almost feel the pages in his book of life turn, opening on a blank page where anything can be written.

But before he can completely grasp what it all means, Kate is before him, all smiles and good cheer. And she’s faking of course—Kate’s always faking. He knows her well enough by now to know that Kate’s never happy about anything, that the scowl she so often wears is more suited to her countenance than this. But still, there’s something…

“I want you to meet your new partner.”

And before he can open his mouth to argue, to convey all the thoughts that have been coursing through his head the last couple of days, a woman steps out from behind Kate, with the biggest, brightest, most genuine smile he’s seen in a long time.

“I’m Buffy Summers,” the woman says, holding out her hand, and all thoughts of leaving, all thoughts of giving up suddenly scatter like so many sheets of paper in a windstorm.

As he takes her hand, one thought only remains to him, and that is that this is a defining moment. One that he will never forget.

.......................................................................................................................

Buffy shifts in the seat beside him, and he glances over, acutely aware of her every nuance in a way he never was with his former partner. He thinks he knows why, but then, it’s only been a week. He can’t possibly be feeling like this. He has to be tricking himself. Or maybe he’s using her as a catalyst to begin to heal, like his psychologist suggested, transferring his emotion for his former partner onto her. Deep down, he doesn’t really believe that, but it’s safer to think so. Far safer than the stirrings he feels deep down in his heart.

She sees him glancing, and so he clears his throat as if he’d meant to speak all along. “So what do you think?” he asks, keeping his voice easy.

“I love it.” She turns to him with that smile, and her eyes are luminous, wide and filled with wonder and pride. She’s so fresh-faced, so bright and shining that he has to look away from her light. Straight out of the Academy, her heart worn on her sleeve and proclaiming to all the world her belief in what she has pledged herself to. He wonders if he ever felt like that. He can’t remember anymore.

“It’s what I always wanted to do,” she goes on, and he can feel her thoughts going distant, as if with memory. He risks another glance, and sees her staring out the window into the midday California sunshine, face wistful and filled with hope. “All my life, I felt like I could make some kind of difference, you know? And now I feel like I am.” She pauses and he can feel her looking at him again.

“Does that sound silly?” she asks, and he wonders how she could ever think so.

“No.”

She’s like the sun, and he cannot meet those shining eyes.

.......................................................................................................................

It had been two months before he’d been willing to admit his feelings, another two weeks before he’d gotten up the nerve to ask her out. Dinner at a local Indian food restaurant complete with belly dancers, and he’d felt like a great big clumsy teenager, fumbling his way through this whole dating thing. Not that he’d never dated anyone—he had, but he’d never cared so much before. Everything seemed so important, so imminent, as if every moment, every word had to be perfect so as not to break the spell between them. He was enamored, and to his astonishment and wonder, so was she. They’d laughed and joked and the order had come out wrong and they’d eaten it together anyway, tucked side by side in a corner booth, so close that he could smell the sweetness of her skin, the nervous pounding of her heart through her body, and he felt like they could have been eating anything and he wouldn’t have cared, so long as he could be this close to her.

.......................................................................................................................

April 2001

The tide rolls in, licking at the bare soles of their feet and tickling them both into laughter as they curl and twine against each other, unmindful of the sand that scrapes and catches against their mostly bare skin. They’ve been building up to this moment for two weeks now and it as if nothing can stand between them. The moon is high and bright and impossibly large as hovers above them, bathing their skin in an ethereal glow. Her lips are the crux of all hope and possibility, and the words that flow from them are the force that sustains him. He hangs on each and every one as if they might reveal all the secrets of the universe.

She trails a hand down his chest and he is lost to the feeling, her words slipping out of time for a moment, out of focus as his body comes alive beneath her touch.

“Angel…”

Her tone changes with the caress, and he shivers with the intensity of it. He can already hear what she wants to say, what she feels, how deep it goes… how much deeper than bones. But he yearns to hear it, must hear it, must know, and so he turns his head to her.

The moon catches in her eyes, no less brilliant for the deep pools of color it reflects in, and he can feel her breath over his lips, raising goose bumps all along his spine. With a grace that leaves him breathless, she seizes the moment and lifts her mouth to his, a gentle shuddering of a kiss, like butterflies shiver and rose petals drift in the wind.

From somewhere far off, a discontent seagull cries and shatters the peace of the moment, and they both start, teeth clicking together in a painful instant. They both pull away, raising hands to their wounded mouths, surprise in their eyes. Surprise for the intensity of the moment, for being interrupted, for so many feelings he cannot lay name to. And then the surprise dissipates as laughter takes hold and they cover their mouths to hide their embarrassment and glee, awkwardness melting away in that moment, and he can only think of how perfect it is, how right that their first kiss should be filled with the same joy that they both feel.

She doesn’t speak the words he knows she feels that night, but he hears them anyway.

.......................................................................................................................

He doesn’t hear them anymore.

.......................................................................................................................

June 2001

The remains of their picnic feast lie forgotten beside them as they embrace beneath the pinks and purples of the setting summer sun. The sky looks as if it is on fire and it makes Angel think in images that he might paint if emotion could be given form, but there are no words, no images that can express this, no way of capturing this perfection between them.

The grass beneath them is no less forgiving than the sand they’d first kissed on, but neither of them notice it as they kiss and murmur words of love and devotion, limbs entwining with an urgency that has been building between them for months.

She is naked and beautiful atop him as she moves, her body filled with slow, aching rhythm that makes his heart beat as if it might burst. The air about them is filled with the song of crickets and the call of locusts, and the air itself curls around them with thick, sweet warmth.

He reaches up with trembling fingers and cups her face between his palms, pulling her down for a long, deep taste of her mouth.

“I love you, Buffy,” he whispers, words tumbling out, hot and desperate against her lips.

“I know,” is all she says, and then she answers the thrust of his hips and mouth with her own.

.......................................................................................................................

He remembers every moment of the afterglow, the breathless words, cherishing and loving. Fingers twined like the dandelions he’d woven into a chain of flowers, a crown for her tousled golden hair, so delicate and fragrant against the flush of her skin. A buttercup twisted into a single ring, slid down the length of one finger, given with smiles and the unspoken commitment between them, petals whispering the promise in his heart. It might have been the heat of the moment, or the passion of their words and kisses, or it could have been the fire smoldering in her eyes, but in that moment, with that ring on her tiny hand, with that sweet smile playing about her mouth, she had become everything he’d ever wanted.

.......................................................................................................................

September 2002

Flowers in her hair again, diminutive white roses twined with baby’s breath and tiny bluebells, nestled just above the thin, lacy drift of her veil. The audience is gathered, family drawing close in emotional embraces, tears flowing freely, fellow precinct members watching on with smiles and quiet approval, and Angel is aware of it all though his eyes never leave hers.

“Angel, do you take this woman to be your lawful wedded wife, to have and to hold, through sickness and health, for better for worse, to love and honor and cherish for all your days, until death do you part?”

For a moment he cannot find the words, and then his fingers act of their own accord, sliding the ring onto her finger just as they had more than a year ago. His face trembles with a smile, such love in her eyes as she gazes up at him, and he wonders if she can see his own as easily as he sees hers.

“I do.”

“Do you, Buffy, take this man to be your lawful wedded husband, to have and to hold, through sickness and health, for better for worse, to love and honor and cherish for all your days, until death do you part?”

Not a hesitation, not a flicker, not a sound in the church, just the slow, sweet, inhale of breath to speak the words he’s waited a lifetime to hear.

“I do.”

“Then by the power vested in me, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may now kiss the bride.”

He lifts the veil and folds it back with care, brushing a thumb over her cheek as he gazes deep into the well of her eyes.

“I love you,” she whispers, and he smiles.

“I know,” he answers, and bends to kiss her.

And careful as he was not to crush the flowers that rest against her brow, Angel hugs her so hard against him that he fears he might break her.

.......................................................................................................................

He remembers months of bliss, of working the streets side by side, living and laughing and loving together within and without the walls of their modest townhouse home. They’d been the envy of all their friends, and the hope for all of them as well, that they might find such happiness in life. Everything had been perfect, picture-perfect, right down to the IKEA furniture and the cocker spaniel puppy they’d picked out at the pound.

He’d relegated all his paintings to the attic, dreams of becoming a tortured, starving artist finally given up for lost. He hadn’t needed pipe-dreams anymore, hadn’t needed an artistic outlet for the anguish in his soul. As his sadness dried up and disappeared, so too did his muse go, and he bid it a fond farewell. His life was a canvas he could not have painted more beautifully or improved upon if he’d tried.

He hadn’t needed anything but this.

.......................................................................................................................

July 2003

He’s shaving in the vanity mirror, razor coasting smoothly over the contours of his face despite his bleary, sleep-filled eyes when Buffy comes bouncing out of the bathroom.

He pauses, looking at her in the mirror over his shoulder, wondering what on earth she could be so happy about at this hour of the morning. His wife is one of those cheery people that wakes up practically singing with the morning birds and even after more than a year of living with her, he still hasn’t gotten used to it.

He can see that she’s clutching something in one of her hands, though from this angle he can’t tell what, and despite his usual case of morning grumpiness, he can’t help but smile back in answer to the beaming grin that’s lighting up her face.

He makes another stroke with the razor, returning his eyes to his own reflection, unable to keep the smile from his voice.

“What’s got you so excited this morning?” he asks.

“Angel. I’m pregnant!” she bursts out, happiness trembling in every syllable of the word.

The razor skips and bumps over his skin as she speaks, and he nicks himself just beneath the chin, blood welling and flowing from a thin, deep cut. It will scar, and later, he will find himself tracing his fingers over the slightly raised patch of skin, remembering the moment he’d gotten it.

He throws down the razor, cut forgotten, shaving forgotten, and pulls her into his arms, his heart thundering happily in his chest like a herd of wild horses.

“We’re gonna have a baby,” she whispers against his chest, and he buries his face in her hair, smiling as he holds her tight.

.......................................................................................................................

At three months, she hadn’t shown at all, and they’d decided to keep it under wraps as long as they could, keep themselves together on the streets. At night, they’d curled in bed together and tried to guess if it would be a boy or girl, and looked up names in a dog-eared book she’d dug out from some box in the attic until they fell asleep; she with a light smile, book still resting against her chest, and him with his hand curled against the tiny curve of her belly.

Now, crimson paint dries in a viscous clot amidst the colorful raiment of fall, and Angel brushes the pad of his thumb over it, remembering how he’d once touched her cheek the same way. The thin skin gives way and pops, and raw paint gushes from the opening, covering his fingers like blood.

.......................................................................................................................

August 2003

“Burglary in progress,” the radio squawks with a garble of static, followed by a nearby address.

“Car 242 responding,” Angel says, picking up the intercom. “We’re right near there. We’ll check it out.”

He glances sideways at Buffy and she nods, ready as always to go in. It’s routine enough, after all. Most of the time these kinds of calls turned out to be some vagrant trying to find a cool place to sleep in the heat of summer. This might be California, but lots of people still went away on vacation, leaving their comfy, air-conditioned houses open to those less scrupulous and less fortunate. And in the case that there was an actual burglary taking place, the burglar tended to be long gone by the time the cops arrived.

A few minutes later, they arrive at the house, and from the moment they exit the car, Angel can feel the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. Something isn’t right here. The windows are dark and the night is silent except for the slight gust of western wind. They look to each other and nod wordlessly, unspoken caution passing between them with the ease of the intimate knowledge of years spent together. Weapons cocked, they go in slow, Angel covering the front door and Buffy slipping silently through the hedges toward the back door.

Angel puts his hand on the doorknob, feeling cool metal slide against his palm, and his skin slips against it, slick with sweat. He’s feeling off tonight, and he can’t figure out why.

The door is locked, and after assessing the strength of the door and the lock, he lifts his foot to kick it in.

The sound of a shot rings out, loud and clear like a death knell, carried on the warm, balmy wind of the California summer night.

His blood turns to ice, and for a moment he feels as if the bullet has pierced his own heart. His mind is screaming, lost in chaos, and he kicks the door open on sheer instinct.

The shot hadn’t been Buffy’s; that’s all he knows.

She’s lying in the kitchen, limbs splayed in an awkward, unnatural posture, covered in blood, God, so much blood. Her clothes are soaked with it, and it blooms from beneath her body in a slowly growing pool.

“Oh my God. Buffy, no.” He grabs her tight with one arm, clutching her desperately against him, rocking back and forth with low whimpering sounds even as his free hand reaches for the radio at his belt.

“Officer down,” he sobs into the radio. “Repeat, officer down. I need an ambulance immediately.” He gives the address on autopilot, then drops the radio, holding her tight with both arms.

“Angel?” Her voice is weak, barely a whisper, but enough for him to know that she’s alive. Alive. Thank God.

He draws back and wipes the bloody hair from her face. “Buffy. It’s okay. The ambulance is on the way and you’re going to be—“

“Angel.” Her eyes are wide and confused, and blood streaks her face in primitive patterns that made her look strange and savage. “The baby. Is the… baby okay?”

“I…” He trails off and swallows, glancing down, realizing for the first time that he’s been so lost to grief that he hasn’t even checked the wound or her vitals. He already knows it’s too much blood to be anything but a body wound, and he releases her with great reluctance, rearranging her limbs so she can lie comfortably against the linoleum floor.

His face crumples, dissolving into sobs again as he sees the small, circular tear in her belly.

“Angel,” her voice is more urgent now, and he can hear the wail of sirens in the distance. “The baby. Is it okay?”

He presses one hand against his mouth the other against her belly, closes his eyes and does the only thing he can.

He lies.

.......................................................................................................................

He remembers the terror of the hospital, white-knuckled and adrenaline filled, not knowing if she would live or die. He’d prayed for the first time in ten years, begged God to take the baby if only she would live. They could always make another baby; he would never find another her.

He remembers her face when he’d finally been allowed to see her. Tight-lipped and pale, barely responsive. He’d cried when the doctor had told them the news, clutched her hand in his and wept like the baby they would never have. He remembers looking up at her through watery eyes, seeing her turn her face away, feeling her fingers slip through his.

She had mourned alone and left him to nurse his own grief, and the space of a year had grown malignant between them.

She doesn’t believe in anything anymore. Not even him.

He rubs the paint between his fingers, letting it cover them, feeling it begin to grow sticky as it dries, and then, with a dark glance at the canvas, rakes his hands through the painted trees, leaving bloody furrows through the reflections in the lake, thick fingernails tearing away tempera in dried flakes.

He rises to his feet and twists the canvas from its resting place, splintering the frame and throwing it to the floor. The easel falls, reeling drunkenly as it comes apart and falls to the floor in three separate pieces before the fury of his fist.

His hands clench into empty fists then, and his breath comes hot and heavy, shuddering gusts from the very depths of his soul, and something like satisfaction coils, red and burning in his gut.

He doesn’t know how long he stands there, fingernails cutting deep, red half-moons into his palms, real blood beginning to run and drip from fragile flesh.

After a while, he hears a sound and he turns.

Buffy stands in the doorway, pale and wan, a worn shadow of her former vibrancy, face sallow and too thin, mouth twisted in that helpless frown he has come to know far too well. One of her hands is pressed unconsciously against a belly that one bullet made sure would never, ever conceive children again.

She’s staring at something on the floor beyond him, and he turns to look at the painting he destroyed.

“I painted it for you,” is all he can think to say. The words come out small, sad and defeated.

“I used to love fall,” she whispers.

He turns to look at her, sorrow like leaden weight in his heart, and nods. “And now it’s winter all the time.”

She doesn’t move for a moment, as if she’s frozen by his words, and then she nods once, wordless.

Tears well and then spill from the gray-blue-green of her eyes, he goes to her, wrapping his arms around her. She’s too thin, too cold, and she feels like a stranger in his arms, but he holds her close, and takes her tears against his shoulder. And for a moment he can pretend, he can remember what it used to be like, how she breathed and laughed against him, how she filled him with joy and lust for life. For a second he almost feels as if it’s all within his grasp again, that they can reach it if only they both stretch out their hands and want it badly enough.

And then she pulls away and dries her eyes, leaving him alone in the wreckage of his dreams.

It’s gone, all gone again, no matter how much he wishes or wants or tries.

He gives the room one last glance, eyes lingering over the painting of her face, a memory once so strong, so present, now almost forgotten beneath the image of her fragile frown. He stares at it for what seems like forever, feeling cold acceptance reach up to claim his heart.

After a long while, he turns and flips off the light switch. The door closes with a soft click behind him, and he knows that it’s for the last time.

There are no more dreams left to paint.

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