Eliot listened to the story without comment, though giving the occasional non-verbal cue that he was listening. At some point, he'd never be exactly sure, his hand found Buffy's, covering it in what was hopefully a comforting gesture.
When he was lieing in the hospital physical contact and close proximity with her and Lindsey had brought comfort. He wouldn't admit to it out loud but he found himself shifting slightly closer to her. Even if she told the story like a story, only occasional deeper emotion slipping through...
Even if she hadn't told him so the more she talked the more Eliot knew how badly that had broken her.
He was quiet for a moment before saying. "Can I tell ya a story?"
Without waiting for the answer he started, turning his face to look toward a different wall. "There was this kid once, his home life... not gonna even talk about that but he had a friend. They had been friends forever, grew up together. He was her knight in shinning armour and she was his warrior princess and she tried to protect him and he tried ta protect her. They were still kids when he gave her a promise ring 'cause he knew they were meant to be."
He blinked, hesitating only a moment before he continued, his voice staying calm. "Then somethin' real bad happened to him and he pushed her away. Tried ta drive her away. Even after they came back together he never let her in again. He was afraid there was somethin' wrong with him. In the end she helped him leave. They couldn't stay together. He wasn't safe anymore. He didn't come back for four years."
"When he did... he was different. She was still a girl and he wasn't. He'd seen monsters and the world. He knew... but he kept coming back, kept thinking it was meant to be, but kept leavin' because he had a monster inside him now an' he couldn't control it." His eyes closed. "Then he got caught by someone, held someplace deep an' dark for months. When he got out though he'd learned to control his monster. He promised himself he'd go get his girl. Give her what she deserved, a house, and kids, sunlight, white picket fences, and him being there not anywhere else. He came home to find her engaged to someone. So he left."
Eliot slowly turned his eyes back toward Buffy. "It took him a while, for awhile he let the monster control him cause it hurt less if he didn't let himself feel or think. But he found direction. Figured out who he was, buried the boy who'd given her the promise ring an' fought without his warrior princess. It still hurt ta talk about her, an' things that've happened since havn't helped but... it got better. He learned who he was without her, an' he's even learnin' how ta be who he is with someone else."
His hand moved to Buffy's shoulder. He'd said more than he meant, but what he'd meant to tell her lay in the subtext of his words. He understood, God he understood, though him and Amie had been somewhat like Buffy and Angel and ironically he'd been the Angel of the two of them.
But he told her he understood. And he told her, promised her, that it would get better and easier. That sometimes these things happened and she'd be okay and sooner or later she'd figure out who she was sans-Angel and when she did maybe the venture would make a little more sense.
He also didn't say by any words, but by a hand on her shoulder, that he'd be here for her whatever the fallout from this turned out to be.