The girl, the tiny little blond girl, scarcely large enough to be called a woman, sleeps in her bed, occasionally turning, moving in her dreams. She's old, far older than she should be, far too old for her calling in life, the ghosts surrounding her bed shaking their heads in despair over a girl too old and yet so young for her life.
A girl who had epic sweeping love in her life, dashing her heart to pieces before being slowly repatched by normality, only to dash it again against darkness fading into shades of gray. She had loved, yes, loved a man taken by death but had within him still a spark of humanity, upturning the underworld's scales of good and evil in a single cursed moment. A girl destined to fight the darkness and a man consumed by it — it was destined to fail even with the faint glimmer of a soul.
And when she had repaired her heart with the wholesome glue of a Midwestern ideal, she attempted to dispel the darkness that had lodged within her own heart, attempted to lose herself in everyday tasks, losing herself in her calling, only to be called out by her fears and emotions, personified in a single pale piece of darkness.
He was everything she had been taught to fight against, everything she knew was wrong with the world she lived in. She had a calling, a single mindless devotion of life, and he was the opposite, the dark reflection on an accursed mirror. She should have killed him, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, and instead, without any warning, without any forethought or knowledge, she loved him.
Loved him and dissolved within him, losing herself to the seemingly impossible world she was now a part of. No longer was she separate from the ages-old world of monsters and miracles, but mired in the middle of it, barely keeping her head completely above the sea of darkness.
And he, thrust into the light by the mad throes of science's passion, his darkness fading into shades of gray, pain and ecstasy wrapped in his mind around a piece of metal and plastic, the joy of the kill subsumed into something similiar but so very different — the joy of sexual conquest.
She was light fading, he was darkness brightening. As she dreamt of her life, dreamt of what would always be unnatural and what would always be holy, he wrapped his arms around her and held her against the changes.
This Angel/Buffy the Vampire Slayer story was written by Kate Bolin. If you liked it, there's plenty more at http://www.dymphna.net/fanfic/. And you can feedback her at dymphna@dymphna.net.