Title: To Shanshu on Sunnydale
Author: Matrya
Feedback: Is beloved.
Disclaimer: The universes of Angel, Firefly and Fray all belong to the illustrious Joss Whedon.
Fandom: Angel/Firefly; allusions to Fray.
In Canon: Post-Canon in all universes.
Characters/Pairings: Angel/us, River, Inara, Fray, Willow.
Word Count: 262
Author's Notes: Little plot bunny, and I mean little.
Summary: This girl wasn't Mel. She didn't know him. She didn't love him.





This girl, lithe and dark, was looking at him while she spouted on like he hadn't heard in centuries. The girl was tearing him out in the Old Haddyn dialect, right on down to calling him a 'damn dirty lurk'. All she said, every word was familiar, pushing and pulling at him like a wave of discomforting familiarity.

Then, he recognised the words. This was the speech Mel had given Angelus just before he had killed her. This girl...he hadn't seen one in over two centuries, but this girl had to be a Slayer. There he was, standing with a Slayer on some back water planet with a broke down orbit, he hadn't fought in years, she looked like she had been honing her talents, the way she stalked. There was a chopstick in each of her hands.

"Thought we'd done rid of lurks," she said and he could see Mel in her, could almost see a gray-skinned, fire-crackle Willow behind her, holding a glowing orb. Damn all, he could almost feel his face shifting, his teeth sinking into her neck, the warmth of her in his arms; some demented portrait of lovers like he used to love.

That wasn't Willow, though. There was no magic in the regal woman behind her. This girl wasn't Mel. She didn't know him. She didn't love him.

She wouldn't die in his arms.

Her eyes shifted, like she could read his thoughts, and he knew he was going to die on some backwater planet that he'd chosen for its name and darkness.