Beholder: Chapter 6


DarkRhiannon@aol.com


Angel pulled the diminutive Slayer into his arms, lifting her light
frame with no difficulty.  He opened the door to the hallway and
strode quickly to her room, feeling decidedly naked clad only in a
flimsy towel.  He entered her room and kicked the door shut behind
him.

Buffy was silent and still in his arms, her face closed and growing
wary once more.  Angel wondered what she could be thinking.  He'd
thought he'd gotten through to her with his impassioned words, but
clearly it would take more work before she fully trusted him.

He had no idea.

Buffy was awash in conflicting impulses—frozen by too many desires
warring with need.  She truly didn't blame him for the attack that
had robbed her of her sight.  *Hell, I gave up the chance for a
normal life years ago,* she thought.  *Not his fault this happened. 
If anyone is to blame, it's me for not ducking fast enough.  One more
mistake on my part…I'll just add it to the freaky pile that is my
life.*  She wanted nothing more than to curl into Angel's arms and
never come out again—to hide away and bask in his love.

But how could he love her?  He'd stayed away for so long.  A lifetime…
literally in her case.  She'd been so lost without him, without her
soul's mate, though she'd tried to mask it, especially once she'd
been resurrected.  Tried to drown the pain of life in sex with the
his dead spawn. And now, he was here again.  Though he said it wasn't
out of pity, how could she believe anything else?  She knew how awful
the scars were—that was why she kept her eyes hidden behind the
glasses.  It didn't matter what he said now to comfort her, Buffy
knew Angel.  He loved beauty.  Even when he was brooding, he
surrounded himself with beautiful things—with sculptures and artwork,
with precious fabrics and lovely prints.  He'd drawn her, once.  His
sketches were things of beauty.

And women.  Throughout his existence as Liam, Angelus, and Angel,
he'd been with beautiful women.  He'd once told her she was
beautiful.  What did she have to offer now?

Angel set Buffy gently onto the bed, tucking the fluffy towel more
closely about her.  "Buffy," he said seriously, "we need to talk."

Buffy cringed at the words, then straightened her spine defiantly. 
*He's leaving me again.  He has to go back to LA.*  "It's ok, Angel,"
she said distantly.  "I already know what you're going to say."

Angel gazed at her naked face, glad that he'd left the glasses in the
bath.  He'd allowed his own emotions to cloud the issue the previous
night—his never-ending need for her to rush them into a renewed
physical intimacy that she was clearly not ready for, however eager
she'd seemed at the time.

She'd used sex against him as a weapon there in the shower—used it as
skillfully and bitterly as ever Darla had.  Angel had no doubt who
had taught her that.  *Spike,* he hissed mentally.  Spike had tried
to taint her, had used her.  He'd boasted to Angel of the many ways
he'd taken the Slayer, laughed at the pain he'd inflicted at her
demand, and the scars that she'd left upon him, called her an animal
in bed. That he'd also claimed to love her meant nothing to Angel,
for she'd clearly not returned the sentiment.  She'd learned to take
pleasure in passion and pain—that much was clear—but Angel believed
her tryst with Spike had been more about self-loathing than sexual
gratification.

"Buffy, I'm sorry I made love to you last night," he began.  "I
shouldn't have rushed things with you, but you were so hap…"

"Hopeless?  Pathetic?  Yeah, I know, Angel.  You don't need to
apologize.  I totally get it now.  You're sorry we had sex, worried
that I'll make more of it than it was.  Hey, it was a good time,
great even, but let's not make a big deal.  We're both adults now.  I
wasn't expecting a dulcet choir of little birdies," she bit out,
rising from the bed and turning from him to take two measured steps
to her closet.

"No, Buffy, it wasn't like that!  I love you!"

"Yeah, love you, too, Babe."  She dropped the towel and pulled a
hooded sweatshirt from its hanger, yanking it roughly over her
head.  "I think it's time you headed back to your life in LA," she
said, stepping into the sweats that matched the shirt.  She wasn't
going to let him hurt her again.  She forced her voice rock steady
and continued, "We can do it again sometime soon.  I'll call you." 

She walked past him as he stood, staring at her in shock.  Her hands
fumbled on the doorknob before she pulled it open and stepped into
the hallway, moving carefully to the bathroom and closing the door in
his face as he followed helplessly in her wake.

This wasn't what he'd expected, damn it!  He honestly didn't know
what he'd expected, but not this.  Her attitude was so brittle, so
distant, any sign that he'd actually gotten through to her in the
shower was gone.  He heard her rustling around in the bathroom, and
tried the door.  The broken lock yielded to him with ease.  *If only
Buffy were so easy to unlock.*  He opened the door and stood in the
doorway watching her.

She was brushing her hair in the dark of the room, not having
bothered to turn on the useless light.  His predator's eyes could see
her distinctly and she seemed strangely untroubled, her hands
stroking the brush through her nearly dry hair with practiced
insouciance.  She placed the brush carefully into a basket perched
near the sink and skimmed her hand lightly over the counter.  She was
determinately nonchalant about it, but he realized she was trying to
find her dark glasses.

"They're on the other side of the sink, six inches in from the edge,"
he whispered in a dead voice, and she flinched, then moved her hand
to that side, grabbing jerkily for the glasses and placing them on
her face.

"Thanks," Buffy said brightly, turning to face him, her expression
guarded and closed to his inquiring gaze.

"Buffy, you're totally wrong about last night," he said.  "It meant…
everything to me to be with you again.  I love you, Buffy.  Why can't
you understand that?"

"Angel, I really can't do this right now," Buffy said.  "I need to
get to work on my Braille…gotta get with the program, you know," she
added jokingly.  "This afternoon, I want Giles to take me to
Sunnyrest Cemetery to try to map out the grounds in my head.  I have
a lot to do, and I know that you have a life in LA…a life that I'm
not a part of.  But, hey, we'll keep in touch, K?"

"NO!  It's not ok, Buffy, please, listen to me."

"Angel, if this is what the morning after is like with you, maybe I
was luckier last time around than I thought," Buffy said
scathingly.  "Look, we had fun, it was great, but we both have lives
and they're not together.  End of story."

Buffy brushed past him, knocking against his hip with her own.  His
towel, hastily tucked around his hips earlier, came loose, falling to
the floor of the hall just as Xander bounded to the top of the stairs.

"Buffy, Giles and Willow have chocolate chip pancakes going.  You
wanna come…whoa, Dead boy, the Angel "Full Monty" so not what I was
expecting!" Xander choked out in surprise.  *He's a very attractive
man…NO! Not thinking that about the vampire.  Not interested in any
way in the vampire!*  "Gah!"

"Angel was just on his way to the shower, Xander," Buffy said,
stepping towards his voice.  "Could you please grab my cane for me?"
she asked.  "It's hanging on that hook you put up for me by my bed."

Xander darted past Angel in the close space of the hallway, cringing
from the naked vampire as he did so.

"Buffy," Angel hissed as he bent to grab the treacherous towel from
the floor and wrap it hastily around his hips again, "this isn't
over."

"No, Angel, it really is," she said, taking the cane from Xander and
feeling for the top of the stairs with it.  "You were wonderful, but
it's time for me to get on with my life. Alone.  I see that now." 
She walked away from him with Xander trailing hurriedly after her. 
He shot a glance full of self-satisfaction back at Angel, then handed
Buffy the cane before following her down the stairs chased by the
menacing growl issuing forth from the vampire.

Angel stomped into the bathroom, so angry at himself and the entire
damned situation that he wanted to break something.  The mirror,
stubbornly ignoring him as usual, didn't help matters any.  He
dropped the towel to the floor, stepping into the shower and turning
it on with no care as to the temperature.  The icy spray meant
nothing to his dead flesh anyway, he thought as he soaped his hair
briskly.  *She's my mate.  Mine.  Mine to protect, to help, to
love.*  His demon rose inside him at the thought, that dark other
whispering to his soul.  *Mine to torment, mine to fuck, mine to
drink, mine to turn!*

"Aaah, no!"  Angel pounded the wall, nearly breaking the tile before
he pulled the blow.  His blood urges were enflamed by his latest
taste of slayer's blood, *Buffy's blood!* and he kept the demon in
check only through a century of iron-willed control.  He craved more
of her, more of that enticing warmth, more of that intoxicating
blood, more of her soul entwined with his, more of her body under,
over, around, beside him.  He wanted her fighting at his side,
cracking jokes and making bad puns.  He needed her, loved her, wanted
her with everything in him…still.  And she couldn't, wouldn't allow
herself to believe in him.

He washed himself hastily and stepped from the shower to dry himself
with the discarded towel.  He ran Buffy's brush through his spiky
hair and replaced it carefully in the basket before stepping once
again into his pants.  He hung the towel on the bar and left the
bathroom no more certain of how to proceed than he had been when he
entered it.

*

"Giles," Buffy said, turning her face toward the familiar tweedy
smell of her watcher.

"Yes, Buffy, what is it?" he replied, turning to face her as he did
so.

"If you're not busy, could you take me to Sunnyrest some time today?"

"Whatever for, Buffy?" he inquired.

"I need to start learning the layout…the placement of the tombstones
and bushes and things," she replied.

"Excuse me when I say, huh?" Xander said around a mouthful of
chocolate chip pancake.

"I fought last night.  Slayed…er…slew…whatever.  I've been hiding
inside all weepy and depressed for a month now.  The pity party is
over.  I need to get back to work."

Willow stared at her friend.  "Buffy, you still can't see, can you?"

"Nope, blind as a bat, Will," the Slayer replied tartly.  "But I can
still sense vamps and that means I can kill them.  I need to start
learning the lay of the land…memorizing the paths and stuff. 
Otherwise I may hit the vamps but I'll trip over the gravestones."

"Buffy, I commend your zeal for your Calling," Giles
interjected, "but it seems foolhardy to me in the extreme for you to
seek out danger in this manner."

Buffy frowned at him.  "Giles, if I don't seek it out, it sure as
hell *will* find us.  The vamps aren't going to go away just because
I can't see them.  I'm not an ostrich."

"You needn't stick your neck out to prove you're not burying it in
the sand," Giles said gently.  "Buffy, you have enough on your plate
already."

"That's never made a difference, Giles.  I need to do this.  I was
Called to do it.  That hasn't changed just because I have.  Willow,
there have to be some spells that you can find that could, I don't
know, augment sight somehow, aren't there?"  Buffy turned to face her
friend, who hovered at the stove.

"Um, yeah, I mean, there are lots of spells of seeing, we'd just need
to find the right one.  I don't know how they'd work on someone like
you, though."  Willow's voice trailed off.

"Blind, you mean?  Well, let's find out," Buffy said.  "Can we go,
Giles?" she asked at the sound of a thump upstairs.

"Now?  But, ah, Angel, that is, don't you wish to speak with Angel
first?" the Watcher asked.

"Nope, I'm fine, let's go," Buffy insisted, standing and moving to
the door.  "Thanks for the pancakes, Will," she said.

"Ah, sure, Buffy, any time," Willow replied, staring at Buffy's
untouched plate.

The Slayer was out of the door at nearly her normal speed by the time
her mate had made it down the stairs.  He stood broodily at the back
door watching her walk slowly through the sunlight that barred his
passage, her Watcher trailing behind.

"So, Dead boy, she doesn't exactly seem to want you around," Xander
said with a barbed smile.

Angel turned and stared at him and Xander fell silent at the raw pain
in the vampire's eyes.  "Why should it be any different now, Xander?"
he replied bitterly.  "I left her, gave her up--twice, let her die--
twice, let her be resurrected—ripped from Heaven," he said pointedly,
glaring at them.  "Let my traitorous spawn use her, let her be
blinded, why should she want me around?"

"Angel, want a pancake?" Willow asked, desperately, feeling totally
out of her depth with the vampire before her in such pain.  She'd
hoped that last night would mend their feelings, strengthen them,
help them be together, but it seemed as if they were even further
apart today than they'd been before.  "Chocolaty goodness?"

"No thanks, Willow," he said moodily, still staring out into the
sunshine.  "Xander," he said abruptly, "I need a favor."

"And I should want to help you because…?" the young man asked with a
slight sneer.

"Because it will help Buffy," Angel replied evenly, gazing at the one
he'd envied for his place at Buffy's side.

"Ok, then.  What do I have to do?" Xander asked, certain that
whatever Angel had planned, if it helped Buffy then he needed to do
it.

*

Buffy climbed from Giles's car without help, extending her cane
before her and finding the curb.  She stepped carefully forward, the
cane tapping before her as she took measured steps down the
sidewalk.  *One, two, three, four, five, six paces to the entrance,*
she counted in her head.  She put one hand to the marble arch that
spanned the entrance, then moved in.  "Giles, there are five grass
rows back to the start of the mausoleums, right?" she asked,
picturing the cemetery in her head as she did so.

"That's correct, Buffy.  I'm surprised that you remember so well,"
her watcher replied.

"Practice makes perfect, Giles.  It's not like I haven't hunted this
cemetery a thousand times…I've patrolled here practically every night
for the past 6 years.  Sometimes it was too dark even for me to see. 
I learned my way around.  It's really embarrassing when you fall into
graves, y'know," she added matter-of-factly.

The Watcher chuckled, "that *was* quite amusing, Buffy," he said
reminiscently.

"Laugh it up, Giles," Buffy smiled at him.  "Now let's get to work."

They paced the cemetery, Buffy counting silently to herself as they
worked to map out every gravestone, every tree, every potential
obstacle in her way.  Giles was astounded at her focus.  She
concentrated so hard upon the details of each pathway, the vagaries
of each plot, that he was taken aback.  Had she expended one fifth of
that effort on her schoolwork, she would have excelled in every
subject.  He mentioned this to her in passing.

"Geeze, Giles, priorities much?" she replied absently, still
recounting the last row in her head.  "I used my concentration on
surviving my nights, not on filling my head with useless information."

"It was hardly useless, Buffy," he chided gently.

"Really, Giles?  When will I use French while slaying?  To chat up
French vampires?  I'm thinking no.  History?  The only histories I
use are the ones in your musty old books, and I have you for those. 
I wanted a life, Giles, a chance to be a normal girl once in a
while.  To have that, I had to use everything I had to make it
through each night, each fight.  Not to ace the English final. 
That's for girls with a future…a career…a life.  Not for me," she
said.

Giles was startled at the acceptance in her voice, then irritated at
himself for his surprise.  She'd died twice already, was it any
wonder that she felt she had no future?  Her mother's death had ended
any dreams she'd held of college, her sister's death and her own
ended any dreams she'd had of a family life, though he comforted
himself with the thought that Willow, Xander and he had provided some
semblance of one for her.  And her romantic life was as dead as her
first and final lovers had been.  Though perhaps that might change
with Angel back.

Buffy forced him to walk the perimeter, then the interior of the
cemetery with her thrice more, then to watch as she first trotted,
then ran it.  Her execution was nearly flawless.  He was impressed,
then concerned as she insisted on running it yet again.  When she
demanded that he train there with her, he finally put his foot
down.  "Buffy, surely that's adequate for one day," he said, as she
panted from the now-unaccustomed exertion.  "You need to get your
strength back before you'll be ready to try this at night," he added.

"And while I'm training, how many people are dying, Giles?" Buffy
panted.  "What are acceptable losses?  Five, ten, twenty people per
night?  I have to learn this today so we can do a different cemetery
tomorrow."

"Certainly not, Buffy.  I must object.  You need rest and
recuperation.  It was only two days ago that you…" he stopped,
momentarily nonplussed.

"That I tried to kill myself, Giles?  It's ok, you can say it.  Look,
I'm not past it, I'm not over being blind.  I'll probably never be
over being blind.  But it isn't going to change and all the boo-
hooing in the world won't make it go away.  So the best I can do is
move on.  Keep busy.  Actually *do* something.  This is what I do,
it's who I am.  I'm patrolling Sunnyrest tonight.  If you want to
come along, that's great, but one way or another, I'm doing it,
Giles," she said stubbornly.  "Now for god's sake, stop making me do
speeches, `cause I suck at them.  Let's spar…the blind chick'll go
easy on you," she grinned.

Giles moved into striking range reluctantly, turning his body
automatically to present the smallest possible target.

"C'mon, Giles, throw a punch or something," Buffy cajoled, her head
cocked intently, for all the world as if she could see him.

The Watcher swung a half-hearted punch in her direction.

Buffy was concentrating with all her remaining senses and felt the
air movement at the same time she heard the soft swish of the tweed
that Giles wore.  She pulled her head back from his punch and jabbed
gently in the direction his voice had come from with her cane.

Giles pulled his chest back from the almost-strike, and swore under
his breath.  She was good.  He remembered blindfolding her and giving
her a ball to throw at him one day when he'd run out of training
exercises but was unwilling to let her out of the library just yet. 
She'd shown an uncanny ability even then to judge spatial distances
quite accurately.  Her maiming seemed to have intensified that
ability.

He jabbed more forcefully towards her and she swung her left arm up
to catch his fist in an iron grip.  She used the handle end of the
cane to thump him in the leg and his knee buckled from the strike. 
He ended kneeling before her, his hand aching from the pressure of
her grip.  "Enough, Buffy, you've made your point."

"Ok, Giles, I guess we can go home now.  I still need to…deal with
Angel."

"You could do worse than Angel for an ally," Giles noted, watching as
Buffy counted steps to the cemetery entrance.  She put one hand out
and grabbed the gate unerringly and he smiled despite himself.  For
the first time since the attack, he thought she might be on the road
to wellness.

"He doesn't belong here, Giles.  He never did.  He called it a freak
show years ago, long before I started looking like a freak.  I don't
want him here out of pity."

"It hardly seems like that, Buffy.  I do believe that Angel genuinely
cares for you," the Watcher said as they climbed into the car.

"We have separate lives now, Giles.  I learned a long time ago that
happiness and Buffy don't mix.  I have a job to do, I have friends to
help, who knows, maybe Willow will come up with something we can
use.  Whatever happens, moping about my ex is not going to increase
my chances of survival," she said callously.

Giles knew that she was hiding her true emotions on the subject, but
there was nothing he could do regardless.  It was Buffy's choice. 
Goodness knows, she'd had little choice about anything else in her
life lately.

They rode home in silence.  Buffy climbed from the car, a bit slowly,
but her steps became more certain once the front walk was underfoot. 
She accurately measured the distance to the front porch steps, then
climbed them without tripping and moved to the front door.  She
opened it and tilted her head for a moment, sightless eyes turned
toward the stairs, then turned to Willow, who stood nervously by the
stairs.  "He's gone," Buffy stated flatly.

"Yes," her best friend replied.

"Good," Buffy said, turning to head toward the kitchen.

"But Buffy, he…" Willow's voice trailed off as she turned to
Giles.  "She really doesn't want Angel here?" she asked him
plaintively.

"She's afraid, Willow.  She's already been through so much, perhaps
it's truly for the best," the Watcher replied.

"Well, you get to call him in LA and tell him, then," Willow
squeaked.  "I have research to do."  With that, she slipped away
upstairs, gratefully ducking the job of informing Angel that he
shouldn't leave his agency with Wesley and return to the Hellmouth,
as he planned.

To be continued.

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