Once More (Part 12)

ONCE MORE/ PART TWELVE

Xander felt for her. Just to make sure she was still there. He did that a lot with his wife, to assure himself that he deserved her yet. Because after all he had done to Cordelia, she seemed only to remember - or only to speak of - what he had done *for* her. And it made him think that this, too, would pass.

But it was still fresh in his mind that night, the night when "this" became reality. He knew the way she felt about Buffy, and really about the Slayer in general. Frankly, he didn't blame her. He had everything he wanted now: success, love, a woman who was strong and beautiful and funny and kind. He tried to get the memory of Buffy's touch off his mind, but it lingered naggingly.

Xander treated sex like any other man did, a pleasurable and wonderful thing, something that when Buffy offered it to him he simply couldn't find it in to say no to. And he wasn't upset, because he was doing the same thing when they were together.

He knew very well Buffy didn'tlove him, and probably didn't want him that night two years earlier. And still, he couldnt' refuse her. And knowing that would be even worse than the act, especially for Cordelia.

*******************

Angel was at confessional.

He never forgot about her. In fact, very night that he fell to sleep alone he pictured her next to him and was swept away by the sheer pain of it. She came back to him, little by little, every night. And now she had come back to him for real.

When Xander and Cordelia announced their imminent wedding, it had been too hard for Buffy to take. His wonderful nights with her turned into intense discussions, hearings on their future, his plans, her dreams. It wasn't like Angel didn't want to be with her - he did, forever - but he couldn't. It hurt him further to be able to give her no answers.

On the day of the wedding, she had called him. Why didn't you go? he asked. All she had said was, Be ready for tonight. He wasn't ready at all. Angel sobbed, cold tears streaming down his cheeks in a fervor of remembrance.

Sex had been one of their most frequent conversations, but Buffy was reluctant to approach Giles about the consequences of copulation, even if it was with Angel. They were infinitely gentle with each other, two inexperienced children despite the fact that Angel had seen enough women to last five lifetimes. She was different, though. He loved Buffy completely and utterly. To him, the virgin Slayer was the only woman alive, the most beautiful partner he could ever have.

When he started to tense up inside her, Angel wanted to pull away. But something he hadn't counted on started to happen. However awful it was for it must have been sheer torture for her, watching him turn and and feeling him hold onto her with the claws of a demon. He pushed and pulled her until the blood flowed like a river of death around her sweet legs. The carnage only addled him more, and to Angel's eternal suffering, he --

So much blood ripped him into a frenzy, and as she lay there, unconscious, mercifully, Angel's demon went wild. He took a talon and marked her, told her breast forever that she was only his.

According to the never-seen police reports, however, Angel had left Buffy naked, bruised, bleeding, and beyond recognition. In a dumpster outside Sunnydale High School. It was days before he even came to, weeks before he could face humans again. And it was then that another tried to help him.

She had been the closest thing to a real friend Angel ever had, and he was past comprehension when she sought him out in the month after the near-breakup of the marriage. Still, it was hard to deny the girl. She wanted the truth, more than what Buffy had given her. So he had cried to her, said it all, but with the promise that she would never tell Buffy and never speak of what she knew. To that day, Angel remembered her words.

"Oh, Angel. You don't know, do you? She's gone."

Then it was her turn to tell, and after hearing of what Buffy had done, to herself, to her friends, to her life, he could not bear it. That conversation was the last time he spoke truth and listened to a mortal.

He became an avenging angel, not knowing exactly what it was he wished to erase. There were so many things, too little time to finish the job she had began. It was during those few months that he had brought it on them all, no doubt. A moment of leave with a cleaver's axe and Drusilla's once-lovely face.

Nothing would ever be the same after that. A spiral of hatred he created, and sent himsefl on his own downward path. They never found the body of his first obsession. He never found the body of his last.

********************

It was a few minutes before dawn when he got to the cemetery. It was unmarked, but as sure as she was gone, he could never stop imagining where her spirit might lie. He had very little time.

Spike always thought that vampires were unable to feel the emthat a human soul did. He proved them wrong. It was the damn curse that did it, the years that weighed on him now, but his heart ached with hatred, melancholy, and love.

He even felt hope sometimes, hope that after her beautiful body was split in two by the monster who once loved her, she disappeared to heal. He hoped that one day she would come back to him, that he could feel her sweet skin and taste her black honey.

Spike was still stinging from the Slayer's bullet. He was glad she was back now, even glad she was still strong. It would be all the more worthwhile to see her die. Even as he wiped the tears away from his cheek, tears he did not think could come, Spike thought of her. He threw the bouquet of dead red roses, red as her blood, onto the ground.

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