A B/A-focused sequel to Diane Harris' "Reconstruction". Angel has survived Hell... Darla... the Feast of Souls. He has had his epiphany, and finds his life back on a positive track once more. But when Joyce's death sends the L.A. Gang scrambling back to Sunnydale, Buffy and Angel find that their Destinies may be entwined in ways they never imagined. And that's not necessarily good.
Alternate End to Season Five -- Everything up to BtVS: The Body, and AtS: Epiphany has happened, and is therefore spoiled. Goes AU from there, with a sprinkling of spoilers and rumors regarding the end of the season for both series.
Angst, Fluff, Darkness, Smut, Mush, poetry, and gratuitous naked Angel abound. Not that I'm apologizing for any of it. *g*
This fic owes its existence to so many people. My inspirations: Kita, Maayan, Saber, Avarice, Diane, Trixie, Vatrixsta, indie, Serena, the indomitable and sorely missed Harpy, all the old school writers, as well as the new breed... so many wonderful artists, it's hard to name them all. My always wonderful and glisteningly effulgent betas: Anja, Cris, Serena, Vatrixsta Dru, Stacy, Lily, Ang, et. al. The crazies over at Adult Buffy/Angel Shippers and flowers. wild, who never fail to make me laugh and weep with all of our plans for an Anti-Joss-Coup. The perverts at Angel Elders, for our never-ending conversations about DB's chest... good inspiration for the smut. *weg* To my beloved Babblers -- thank you for feeling my pain, and not getting offended when I curse. And most of all, to the readers, who always send such wonderful feedback. *SMOOCH*
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Prologue
She returned to his thoughts in bits and pieces, escaping from that small, airtight place where he had locked her away when the Darkness came.
For years, she had dwelt in the forefront of his mind -- a shining beacon of hope against hope, a reminder of how he had become who he was, and why he rose every sunset to do what he did. She was a living symbol of all that he was not. Good to his evil. Light to his dark. Everything he ever wanted.
Angel never would have admitted it, of course -- not aloud to anyone else, or even explicitly to himself -- but the tiny dreamer in his soul believed the true value of his promised reward lay two hours and a lifetime away, in hair of sunlight gold and eyes of summer moss. That to be human again might mean one small chance... someday...
The light at the end of the tunnel.
When he left Sunnydale, he'd still clung to her so tightly, even as he walked away. And later, when she moved on, and he was still in his eternal stasis... he passed endless hours reliving their happier times together. Halcyon nights of passionate kisses in moonlit graveyards and tiny fingers of warm forgiveness entwined in his as they walked innocent paths of the young and righteous together.
He had never let her go... not really. Even after The Day That Wasn't... after their argument over Faith, and the confrontation with Riley... even then, he hadn't been able to put her out of his mind for long. She was the ground of his being... the reason he stood there at all, with a family, a purpose, a definition, and wasn't a withering shadow of death or a pile of dust on some filthy Manhattan street. She was the reason he wasn't still eating rats, and hadn't given up the ghost to some hopeless morning's sunrise long ago. One glance at her was all it had taken to alter him to his very cells... and for a time, he thought that feeling would be his forever.
But even the Eternal change. Time and circumstances faded her memory some... dulled the cutting edges of longing. Fire destroyed most of the mementos, and the place where they had last lay together. He rose and he fell, Icarus of the soul, reaching for the burning sun of redemption, then revenge, his wings of arrogant existential certainty vaporized by its heat.
And oh, how he had fallen... Plunged into a place so utterly without light, that some still-sane part of his soul couldn't bear to sully the memory of her by taking it with him. When he had shirked the bonds of humanity and all its comforts, he had locked her away tightly somewhere where she would forever remain pure and safe... where she would always be Buffy, and his darkness would never, ever touch her again.
But she came back... pieces of her leaking from the container... drifting in fits and starts into his thoughts, even at his darkest hour.
She came that night... with Darla. After he drilled his tormentor into the mattress, searching desperately inside dead skin for something... anything... to take away the gaping, yawning, ripping nothing that had come to nest in his center. And after, when he slept, gathering the shadows around him and hoping never to wake again.. she came.
He woke to the crash of thunder, and a screaming agony at the core of his being.
((Strong is fighting! It's hard, and it's painful, and it's every day... but if you die now, then all you ever were was a monster!))
No. He couldn't do it anymore. Couldn't fight, when there was nothing to fight for. Not when there was no battle to be won, no foe to be defeated but the undefeatable in every ((...single one of them out there...)). Even her.
But the pain had driven him from his bed anyway... the pain he remembered so clearly, so perfectly, in each sharp, excruciating detail... the only product of a moment of perfect happiness...
Even now, when he recalled that night, he wasn't certain what had really wakened him. His injuries, the storm, a nightmare... or maybe it was a cosmic boot in the ass from the Powers, the universe sneering at him, as it tugged at the tethers that bound his soul. "Isn't this what you wanted?"
Angel's first clear thought was her name ((Buffy...)), and he stumbled out into the storm, each motion familiar, like a horrible rerun of that last time... his every moment of fear and weakness, his every sign of poor judgment, his every wrong, selfish choice crashing down on him... and because of it, all that he had struggled for... all that he had sacrificed and so desperately dreamed of, was lost.
((Dying.))
He fell, hitting the ground with a jarring force, and for a moment, he thought it was over. His soul screamed in a chorus of damned voices... the pain of thousands dead by his own hand, cursing him, pulling him, tearing him in two and dragging him down into Hell.
((Isn't this what you wanted?))
No. No, please... I'm sorry! Buffy...
((Don't fight it, my love. Just let it happen.))
The sound of Darla's voice was like a fairy whip slicing through the chaos inside and around him. An anchor to this reality that pulled him back, even as she encouraged him to let go.
((It leaves a bitterness... it'll pass.))
He forced himself to his feet... to look into soulless eyes of icy blue into which he had poured his mortal life, two centuries before... and into which, a few hours ago, he had tried to lose his immortal essence.
But he was still there, body and soul together. He realized in an instant that what he was looking at... this thing of incredible beauty and evil... could never break the curse, even if he came inside her a thousand times. All he could see there was damnation... hers and his own. Darkness. Hell.
Not Perfect Happiness. Not all the things he longed for, but was eternally denied.
Not Buffy.
For a moment, it wasn't his Sire, but his life's only love, like a phantom before him, green eyes filled with hurt tears and dying innocence, and he remembered how he had taunted her...
((It's what? Bells ringing, fireworks, a dulcet choir of pretty little birdies? Come on, Buffy. It's not like I've never been there before.))
Perfect Despair. The vision of her face that morning, when she should have awakened in a loving embrace, to a rain of grateful, passionate kisses and promises of eternal devotion, and instead she rose to a nightmare walking...leering at her with a frigid mockery of his smile, and attacking her heart with the ghost of his voice.
The memory snapped him to keen awareness. Wrong. He had been going about it all wrong. Redemption wasn't a goal, a place he had to travel to or a prize he had to claim. Victory wasn't a tangible thing that he could hear or see or smell or hold in his hands. Amends could not be made by sacrificing himself to the magnificent beast that created him. Or to the pain that had so long driven him.
Atonement was found in the simple act of giving, for its own sake. He owed this creature nothing. He had already given her everything he had to give.
It was that simple.
And so he clawed his way back into the noise and the grit of the Home Office, to mend what fences were mendable, to do what good could be done...to move forward again, and hope that was enough. For a while, Angel hadn't thought of Buffy at all, his nights were so full. It felt good to be with his friends again, and to work beside them, and... to heal.
The next time she came was a few days after what had been the most difficult battle of his life... that literal manifestation of the centuries old internal struggle between himself and his demon. And though he was ultimately victorious, the cost was high... his already grievous wounds were made worse by the Baynor demons, plus the whipping by Lindsey, and the less tenable damage done by his soul flip-flopping back and forth between the Earth and the ether... to say he was weak and tired was a gross understatement, and Wesley had threatened to chain him down ((You know I'll do it!)) if the vampire even so much as thought about getting out of bed.
Not that Angel had much choice... he drifted in and out of consciousness for days as his friends took turns tending him. When he was finally able to sit up and stay awake for more than a few minutes, the ex-watcher announced that he had something important to discuss with him.
He wasn't sure what he was expecting... maybe more confrontation about his behavior the past few months... more pleading that he try to trust them, let them in more... but he certainly wasn't expecting what he got.
"Your triumph over the Feast of Souls had some... unforeseen side effects..."
Angel had almost wanted to shut his eyes and pretend he hadn't heard that at all. What else could the Powers possibly do to him? What else did he have left for them to take away?
"It's... about your soul."
Some part of him knew. He felt... different. Lighter, somehow, as if his journey to the Other Side... his father's forgiveness and approval ((I've been watching yeh, lately, since the gypsies. Yeh do good work.))... the Powers calling to him ((choose to fight))had lifted some of his burden away. Like someone had taken a vacuum cleaner to the darkest reaches of his being.
But to hear his closest friend say it aloud... to hear this learned man confirm it... define it... put it into words...
It finally became real.
"Your soul is fully yours once more, Angel. It resides in your body because you *chose* to have it there, not because it was forced there by magick."
((ye still have more to do. ye don't belong here...))
"What are you saying?"
It was doltish to ask, of course. Wesley had made himself as clear as possible, considering the subject matter. But he didn't seem to mind explaining... in fact, a bright smile lit his face as he did.
"I'm saying that your soul is anchored. Not only is there no clause to the Gypsy curse... there *is* no more curse at all."
The words seemed to echo, ricocheting around inside his still-groggy skull. No curse. No curse. No curse.
He blinked stupidly, and struggled to find his voice. "How..."
He listened to Wesley's exegesis... his theory about the loosing of Angel's soul by the Feast, and all the evidence he had produced to support his assumption. But the specifics, finally, didn't matter. Only one fact did.
His soul was his. He didn't belong to the Romany any longer. He wasn't barred from seeking the one, simple thing that every living being with a soul longed for:
Happiness.
And naturally, when he thought that, the first vision that popped into his head was Buffy's face. The most insurmountable obstacle between them had just vanished, and for a split second, he had an overwhelming urge -- to go to her. To tell her. To beg her to take him back... let him make love to her the way he'd wanted to for so long... Let him bathe in her warmth once again, and drive away the last of the cold that still clung to his skin.
((Just once more... please...))
But it was only a moment, and he let it pass, like an urge to sneeze or cough.
Thoughts like that wouldn't help. Longing for things that could never be got him nothing but lost, abandoning cherished friends, killing lawyers, and setting vampires ablaze. So he gently pushed her away once more.
As time passed and he recovered, though, she still returned. The next time, when he cleaned out his closet and found the box of smoke-stained refuse that he'd rescued from the old apartment. He didn't mean to open it... but, somehow, he found himself carrying it over to his bed and prying open the top, rifling through the precious remains of his old life. Letters... a movie ticket stub. Some flame-licked sketches and photographs... and his old silk robe.
He hadn't washed it since That Day... the day she wore it. Not that it mattered, since it had never really touched her skin at all. But when he lifted the singed silk to his face and inhaled deeply enough, he didn't smell dust and smoke and dreams come true swallowed whole by the cosmos... he smelled sunshine and honeysuckle... melting chocolate and the blended musk of their union...
He put it away quickly, sealing the box with half a roll of electric tape, and pushed it even further back in the closet, and her, deeper into his heart. No use going there again. No going back. The past was gone, she was happy and loved, and the only direction now for him was forward.
Things at Angel Investigations settled quickly into a routine. Bustling afternoons of research in the office, long nights of talk with sorely-missed allies. For two weeks, Angel had been in possession his permanent soul, and every day he became more convinced that not only *could* he have happiness, but that he *would*, someday. Maybe it wouldn't be perfect. Maybe it wouldn't be the flawless bliss that he had shared for a single moment, with her. But then... who ever found that kind of joy twice in a lifetime? However long that life might be.
Angel wasn't thinking about anything as heavy as love or perfection the afternoon he decided to give his kitchen a badly needed cleaning. He was simply enjoying the scent of Pine Sol, and the fresh early spring air floating through the French doors he'd thrown open to the night... chasing out the ghosts of the past year. He was enveloped in the Zen rhythm of scrubbing, sweeping, and dusting... finding a million tiny joys in the simplest of motions, happy that the physical activity now only caused a minimum of discomfort in his slowly mending body.
((chop wood, carry water. here is enlightenment.))
Then he threw open the freezer to defrost it, and there she was again. The carton was old... he couldn't be sure how old, really, because for the unlife of him, he didn't remember buying it. It was barely identifiable as ice cream at all anymore, it was so thickly freezer burned. The colorful container obscured by crystals like time frozen over the letters on the label: Cookie Dough Fudge Mint Chip. Angel had never opened it. What would be the use? It wouldn't taste like anything but cold to his vampire taste buds, and if there was anything he *didn't* need, it was more ice in his veins.
But there she was... laughing. Really laughing, as he had never seen her do before. Crying out his name as they made love for the fifth time in as many hours (or maybe fiftieth...he'd lost track), her fine features contorted in an ecstasy that softly coaxed his entire being to rejoice and explode into pure light. There she was, dribbling the sweet, chilly goop down the meridian of his warm body and licking it carefully away, leaving them so sticky after, they'd been forced (oh, so reluctantly) to take a shower, laughing all the while.
There she was. Like a ghost. Like the seasons. Like a river. Like a circle, moving away, fading, changing, but always returning again. He stood there for a long time, just staring at that frozen moment, the lone occupant of the dark, icy space, and let it wash through him for the first time in... ages. He took the time to carefully recall every word they'd said... every touch they'd shared, every tear, and he wondered... now that he was free, couldn't he just... one more time... Couldn't he call her? Write her a letter? Couldn't he open his weary soul and tell her all he had seen and done and felt since last they met?
He could look into her shining eyes... hold her small, warm hands, kiss her sweet lips. For a moment, maybe, he could be Home again.
Angel missed her still, with a tender ache that forced stinging tears to his eyes and squeezed his dead heart tight.
((The smallest act of kindness is the greatest thing in the world.))
She had shown him so much kindness... But the only truly benevolent thing Angel had ever done for her -- and, truth be told, for himself -- had been to leave. Nothing would really be different. All those barriers of pain and mistrust would still stand between them, ghosts of their past always lurking just over their shoulders, casting shadows over anything they tried to build. Assuming they could manage to build anything at all, after all this time. There was no way to go back to the innocence they'd had so long ago. How could anything less ever be enough?
No. His gift to Buffy had been letting her go. He would never forget, but... perhaps someday, she would stop coming back quite so often, and he too could move on.
The kind of joy they'd had was too rare to happen again. She had found a man who would love her... stand by her... die for her, if it came to that. Someone who she loved and trusted, and never had to fear or doubt. And that was what he had wanted for her. That was the way it should be. He heard the others come into the lobby, their cheerful voices ringing off the cathedral ceiling.
"Yo, Angel! You gotta check out this dagger, man!" "It's the size of my arm!" "It's more of a sword, really..." "Whatever."
He smiled to himself and called back, "I'll be down in a minute!"
The ice cream was already melting from his long meditation on it. He pulled the carton out, and swept the crystals of ice off the front, exposing the colorful label. Taking one more measure of remembered heartbeats to feel it, remember it, he turned and dumped it in the trash.
Things were just as they should be -- in her world, and in his -- and nothing could be gained by disturbing that equilibrium. What the Fates had in store for them remained to be seen, but... for now... he would leave well enough alone, and keep on the way he always had, with just her ever-present, slowly fading ghost as a reminder...
He had built something solid... something all his own, from the ashes and the longing. A new world, a new life... and though it had initially been only a happy side effect of the most difficult decision he'd ever made, it was real. And he didn't intend on wasting it again by dwelling on the never-can-be's.
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Part 1
Buffy had quickly become the spokeswoman for "keeping busy" in the days after her mother's death. She maintained an eerily upbeat attitude, kept in constant motion, and framed her life with an unending stream of To Do lists which relentlessly devoured exactly twenty four hours of each day, leaving no room for her to catch her breath, let alone to grieve.
"Moping is useless. I, on the other hand, am use*ful*," she insisted. It had become her new, and oft-expressed, motto.
Her adopted family watched her mania with growing dread. After the first night, at the morgue, Buffy hadn't paused for even a moment... not to eat, not to sleep, and certainly not to cry.
"Too much to do," she would contend, and bound off to get the oil changed, buy groceries, or make a call to the funeral home, "Don't worry. Everything' s under control."
Too much control, as far as everyone else was concerned.
She cleaned the house and did the laundry, scrubbed the floors, trimmed the hedges and mowed the lawn, painted the shutters, and patrolled like a mad dervish of demon death. She had shifted from sister and Slayer to Mother and SuperSlayer overnight, without a whimper of protest or a moment's lament. By all outward appearances, Buffy had not only seemed to accept her mother's sudden demise, but had taken on the new definition of her life that was its result with uncharacteristic gusto.
Her friends found themselves helplessly waiting for her to self-destruct. There was grieving to be done, and Buffy simply wasn't doing it.
When she wasn't making cookies or phone calls to relatives, all of her almost non-existent spare time was spent on Slayer Duty. She spent hours haunting Sunnydale's numerous graveyards, putting her ear to the ground at Willy's, or at the Magic Box, relentlessly training or plowing through endless reams of material the Watcher's Council had been providing regarding Glory.
Giles was more than concerned over Buffy's denial -- he was downright frightened. Four days had passed since Joyce died, and the Watcher knew from Dawn that Buffy not only wasn't taking time to mourn, she had ceased doing the simplest, most necessary things -- like sleeping and eating. Normally, he would say that his charge just needed time to process all of the earth-shattering changes of the past few months in her own unique way.
But at this particular moment, he was afraid that her manner of processing would get her -- and possibly every living being in this dimension -- killed. The time was swiftly approaching when Glory would attack, and everyone needed to be at full strength and awareness -- especially the Slayer. Although he lamented the dreadful timing, the stars cared not a bit about Joyce's passing, and when they aligned...
Something had to be done, but he hadn't the foggiest notion of what. Buffy gently rebuffed offers of assistance from any of them, insisting vehemently on accomplishing every small task herself. She refused Willow's offers to talk. Declined Xander and Anya's suggestion that they take Dawn out for an evening. She turned down shopping sprees, movie festivals, 'massive pig-outs', magick, tea, and pretty much every other activity that might once have been a balm for the pain he could see hovering just beneath the surface of her tired, vacant eyes and plastic smile.
Her refusal to open up wounded everyone around her, as well. Each member of their group mourned Joyce's passing, and their attempts to reach out to Buffy had been as much for their benefit as hers. They wanted to honor their individual memories of Buffy's mother in their own way, but without their friend's cooperation, they were left scrambling in the dark with nothing but their sadness and worry. Even Spike had taken to showing up at the shop at odd hours, wearing a hangdog look, and asking if there was anything he could do.
Giles watched Buffy carefully as they all sat down around the table with the newest round of research, gossip, and prophecy regarding the coming Cosmic Convergence, during which, they believed, Glory would make her move.
"I want either Spike or I with you 24/7, do you understand? Don't even open a *window* unless one of us is with you." Buffy enjoined her sister as they concluded.
Dawn, unlike Buffy, was the perfect picture of a grieving teenager. Her eyes were perpetually red from her frequent, sudden bouts of crying, her face drawn and weary, and her usually indomitable manner subdued and quiet. Where normally she fought Buffy tooth and nail for each small speck of her independence and freedom, over the past few days, she had begun to simply acquiesce.
"Okay."
Though it broke Rupert's heart to see the poor girl so despondent, at least her reactions were healthy, considering her complicated circumstances. And so long as the depression didn't drag on for too long a period of time, he was fairly certain that she would eventually recover and be herself once more.
Assuming that she survived the coming days.
Giles shook the thought away. No. Come Hell or high water (and he was convinced that they would more than likely see a great deal of both before this was done), they would keep Dawn safe.
But Buffy...
"Spike?" the Slayer nodded to the blonde vampire, who had been reluctantly re-admitted to their numbers. He, as much as any of them hated to admit it, was desperately needed right now.
"On it. Watch the chit," he mumbled.
Giles, frankly, was as surprised by Spike's turnaround in attitude as anything else. He seemed genuinely grateful to be with the group once more, and his demeanor had become almost uncomfortably cooperative, rather than confrontational. At night, when he was supposed to be watching Dawn, the vampire instead would leave the girl with two or more members of the group, and follow Buffy on her manic patrols.
"All we need is for the Slayer to bloody buy it because she's off her game. If she's gonna die, it's not gonna be at the fangs of some idiot fledge because she hasn't been getting enough sleep," he'd explained.
And, to Giles' great consternation, he was right. Although he in no way trusted the vampire's motives, his agenda was ultimately unimportant at this particular juncture.
Buffy went on. "Okay, great. Now," she turned her weary eyes to her mentor, "Giles, have you been able to figure out those astrological calculations? Do we know *exactly* when Glory will try to open the Gate?"
The Englishman did his level best not to cringe at the deep shadows under her eyes, which she had failed miserably to hide with heavy makeup. "Not precisely. It's a rare alignment of stars and planets -- one that would be of little interest to any scholar or magickian in this dimension, so studies of it are almost non-existent. I do believe we are close, however."
The Slayer's face nearly collapsed at the news. Giles could swear he saw tears threatening in those eyes, and her scowl was unnerving -- a complete over-reaction to what he had said. He suspected he was witnessing one of many cracks in her carefully constructed facade of unflappable strength.
But in less than a blink, the expression vanished, only to be replaced by the calm and business-like one she had worn almost constantly, of late.
"Keep working on it," she said softly, giving him the worst imitation of a smile he had ever seen. The Slayer got up from her seat, claiming her weapons bag from the table, and clipped her beeper onto the waistband of her jeans. "I'll be at Happy Acres, then Willy's. Beep me if *anything* weird happens, okay?" She addressed the last directly to her sister, who forlornly held up her special one button cell phone and nodded. "Good. Spike... don't let her out of your sight for a *second*. If I find out you so much as let her leave the *room* without you, you're dust. Comprende?"
The vampire barely tipped his head in response.
"Well, unless I run into some real fun, I'll be home by 3." She bent over and kissed Dawn, petting her hair tenderly. The only true emotion Buffy showed these days was to the young girl. "Be good for your evil, soulless demon babysitter, okay?"
Not waiting for an answer, Buffy turned and trotted out of the shop, the bells of the door cheerfully announcing her exit.
The others stared after her for a moment, then all eyes turned to their reluctant vampire ally. Without a word or a return glance, Spike got up and followed.
Once he was gone, everyone at the table exhaled at once.
"We have to do something," Willow sighed, "She can't go on like this much longer."
"She's gonna fall apart," Xander agreed.
"And now is *not* the best time for her to do that," Tara added, "Not that there's ever a *good* time."
Giles gave a sigh that came from his toes, and took the seat Buffy had so recently vacated. Each of the young people at that table looked to him for guidance, their eyes filled with the fear and confusion of children with far too much wisdom for their tender years, thrown into yet *another* situation they were utterly unprepared for. True, they had defeated the very Hosts of Hell together... they had even faced Death itself... but never had they had to deal with events as immediately and personally dire as the ones currently before them. Joyce's unexpected, tragic death, Buffy's psychological state... Glory... even Dawn herself.
He never wanted to shake his fists in rage at the Fates more than he had in recent days. It was entirely unfair for Buffy to have to bear the sorts of painful burdens that she did because of her Calling. With Angel's departure, then Riley's... and now her mother, leaving her with not only the weight of the world on her shoulders, but the responsibility of raising a teenager not entirely of human origin, as well...
It was all too much to for even he to think about, and considering how crushing his sympathetic pain, he could barely imagine the depth of emotion his foster daughter was repressing.
"No. It isn't. And yes, we do need to do something. But all our efforts to alleviate her stress have failed miserably, thus far. I'm afraid that I'm fresh out of ideas."
Another collective sigh. They had all wracked their brains... had all reached out in their way... but Buffy had refused them each unequivocally.
"What about her father?" Anya queried softly. Of all of them, it seemed that the ex-demon was taking this hardest of all, "Isn't it his duty to protect his family?"
"He's coming Friday for the funeral, but I guess he couldn't get back any sooner," Willow replied, "Her aunt in Michigan, either. All of this was so..."
She trailed off, slipping back into the mute melancholy that all of them had been suffering from. All of them, that is, except Buffy.
"Sudden?" Xander finished for her.
The Witch nodded.
"Maybe we should shoot her with the tranquilizer gun," Anya suggested helpfully.
Four matching glares met her proposal.
"Well..." she insisted in her own defense, "She has to *sleep*, right?"
"Sure!" Willow snapped, " And then while she's unconscious, we could just hook her up to a glucose IV, because... hey! She has to eat, right?"
"I'm just trying to help."
"Well, you're not, so SHUT UP!"
Giles cringed as the argument quickly escalated.
"Willow, that's not fair," Tara objected.
"NOT FAIR? Buffy is KILLING HERSELF!" the redhead cried, waving a frantic hand at the distraught ex-demon, "And all she can do is..."
"She's doing the best she can, Will," Xander added, "She doesn't understand what's going on!"
"Yeah? Well her best SUCKS!"
"Don't talk about me like I'm not here."
"You guys..."
"Children, please. This isn't helping."
"Neither are you! What have you done for Buffy lately, Giles?"
"I'm as upset as you all are."
Dawn watched the chaos as if from a great distance. She hadn't felt much of anything in days, really, and didn't see much use in talking unless someone spoke directly to her. Her mom was dead, her sister acting like everything was fine, and all her friends were treating her like a china doll -- even Spike, who she had come to count on for *not* doing that. It was like she went to school that morning four days ago, and stepped into some weird dimensional portal that dumped her in a twisted, bizarro version of her already insane life.
She was worried about Buffy, too. Her sister was all she really had, now, even if she wasn't really her sister, and she couldn't even find the energy to help bring her back. Dawn herself cried every time she blinked, it seemed like, and Buffy would always just put her arms around her and comfort her, but never shed a single tear herself. It was all too spooky, and she didn't have the first clue what to do to help her obviously screwed up sister feel better. At least get a little depressed, and not be all Donna Reed all the time.
There was no one who Buffy was willing to lean on, really. She was the Slayer, and so used to everybody depending on her, she didn't even remember how to let go anymore. But then... that had always been her way. For as long as Dawn could remember, her older sister did her own thing, and refused to let anybody give her advice or support her at all. She kept everything to herself, and now...
Now Dawn was terrified that she was going to lose Buffy, too. She couldn't help remembering when she ran away a few years ago... how everybody had been so sad and quiet, and Dawn knew that something terrible was happening, but nobody would tell her what. She cried herself to sleep almost every night while Buffy was gone, wondering what she'd done wrong... what could've happened with Angel that would have...
Her brain came to a screeching halt.
"Guys?" she murmured, but no one heard above the shouting. "GUYS!!!!!"
All eyes snapped to her, shocked at her shriek.
"Dawn? What is it?" Giles asked, quickly leaning toward her, concern clearly etched on his features.
Dawn took a deep breath, knowing what she was about to say probably wouldn't make anybody very happy. But right now, anything was better than watching Buffy fall apart, right?
She could hardly believe she hadn't thought of it before now. The only person Buffy had ever really relied on. The only shoulder she'd allowed to take some of her weight. The only other creature in the universe she trusted enough to really be weak with...
She remembered when Buffy had nearly had a breakdown after the Master killed her (not that anybody had told Dawn about that, either, she'd read it in Giles' journal). How she had woken up late one night to the sound of loud sobbing from the living room, and crept to the top of the stairs, terrified that something really bad had happened. Buffy had been a total psycho-bitch over the summer at their Dad's, acting all superior and snotty to everyone, including her. To hear her so upset, now...
When Dawn peeked over the railing, she almost collapsed with relief at the sight that met her eyes -- big, strong arms wrapped tightly around her sister, soft lips tenderly brushing her hair, a deep, velvet voice whispering comforting nonsense...
She went back to bed that night feeling better than she had in months, knowing that if anybody could make it all better, he could. He always did.
And now...
"I know how we can help Buffy," she informed them.
The optimism and relief that instantly blossomed on everyone's face, she knew, wouldn't last long. But maybe, considering the circumstances, they could all forget the past for a little while. For Buffy's sake.
"How?" Xander asked, voicing the question that was clear in everyone's eyes.
Dawn took a minute to look into each face as she steeled herself for their reaction.
"We have to call Angel."
The silence grew so thick that it choked all the oxygen out of the air. Everyone slowly exchanged looks that Dawn couldn't identify, and she swallowed hard, sinking back into her chair as she braced herself for them to start yelling again.
But no one said anything, or even moved at all for a long time, until Giles finally got up and retrieved the cordless from the training room, then returned to his seat.
"I said that before, but nobody wanted to hear it," Willow grumbled under her breath.
Dawn held out her hand. "Let me... I want to tell him."
The Watcher almost smiled as he handed her the phone.
They all knew it was true, whether they liked it or not. If anybody would be able to help Buffy deal, it was Angel.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Part 2
"I don't understand," Wesley repeated for the hundredth time since their return to the Hyperion, "I was absolutely certain from the description that they would be Pootiadiep, and decapitation was the proper way to dispose of them!"
"I told you, they were *blue* in my vision, *not* red! Why don't you ever listen to me?" Cordy huffed.
"I *did* listen, Cordelia! And other than the unusual color, the demons you described fit the Pootiadiep profile to the *detail*!"
"Then how is it, exactly, that not only *didn't* they turn to convenient, Bounty-sized puddles of slime when we chopped their heads off, they *multiplied*?" Gunn complained wearily, collapsing to the couch opposite Angel. "We started out with four big, ugly mothers -- odds I can handle -- and ended up with *seven*. And got our asses handed to us."
"I said I was *sorry*!" Wesley countered, pacing the room stiffly, "I was *certain*!"
Angel had to work hard to suppress both his concern and a happy smile. The former springing from his frustration at still not being 100%, and having to stay behind while the others did the dangerous work, and the latter...
Frankly, the smile had become a fairly permanent part of him, lately. He and his friends were rebuilding their relationship, the business was running smoothly, he was almost healed... unlife was really good, for a change. This particular smile originated from the fact that Cordy, Wesley and Gunn's bickering fell like a soft lullaby on his ears.
Cordy grabbed one of several dozen rolls of paper towels that she kept in the foyer closet. "Yeah, well, next time why don't you study your primary colors before we go out on a hunt!" she barked, mopping desperately at the neon orange goo smeared all over the front of her navy outfit for a moment, before giving up and throwing the towels on the floor with a frustrated grunt. "You know, I don't know why I bother even getting dressed at all!"
Angel noticed that Gunn didn't bother to hide his smirk.
"Well, perhaps you should stop dressing like a "Vogue" model, and switch to more *practical* attire, as we have been suggesting to you for... what, close to two *years* now?" Wesley sniped. He finally quit his pacing and sat beside Gunn on the sofa with "Corlat's Demon Encyclopedia" open on his lap.
"I take it things didn't go as smoothly as we planned," Angel chuckled, swinging out of his reclined position on the couch.
Cordy snorted as she flopped down in the space he'd opened beside him. "It was SO gross. I mean, here we are, all 'Oh, just cut their heads off,' which sounded *great*, in theory, but then Gunn actually *did* cut one of their heads off, and first," she gestured down at her ruined clothes, "Buckets of completely nauseating *ooze* all over the place, and *then*, snap, crackle, BOOM -- the head grows a new body and the body grows a new head!"
"And we were pretty much up shit creek," Gunn added.
Angel leaned forward, still trying to keep a serious face. "But you're all right... how'd you finally kill them?"
Wesley sighed. "We didn't. We beheaded several more, just to be certain, and when we got the same result..."
"We ran like Hell," Cordy finished, "Being the fearless demon hunters that we are."
Angel leaned back and let a small fraction of his smile appear. "Well, at least you got out of there. We can take care of them tomorrow."
"We're okay, but the people on the subway tomorrow might not be," Gunn reminded them.
The vampire nodded. "Taken care of. Kate pulled some strings and got the line shut down, for now."
Wesley looked impressed. "And what reason did she give for that, pray tell?"
"Alligators."
The tension broke at that, and the four friends shared a good laugh until Wesley slapped the book on the table between them, signaling the start of business.
"All right. The creatures Cordelia saw in her vision, as rendered by Angel, have all the characteristics of the common Pootiadiep: long, thick, bear-like coat, large red eyes and retracting claws, and the requisite blue bill. The only notable difference between said species and those we encountered, was the *color* of the coat. Pootiadiep fur is blue, by all accounts, while these creatures were decidedly *red*."
"And the head thing," Cordy added.
"Yes. That, as well."
"Maybe distant cousins?" Gunn suggested.
"Quite possibly," Wes concurred, "But if that is true, then we are at a loss. None of the sources I've consulted make any mention of a species of demon so entirely similar to the common Pootiadiep."
Cordy popped up, her lament over the loss of her outfit already forgotten as she jogged across the lobby toward her desk. "I'll check out D, D &D. Ooh! And the list -- maybe one of the other hunters online knows what these things are."
Angel never ceased to be amazed (and, admittedly, saddened,) by all of the changes that had taken place in his friends and their group dynamic over only a few months' time. Cordy had matured yet more, and was now able to switch focus from herself to business at the drop of a hat. Wesley had slid into the role of their leader as though he was born to it (which, considering his background as a Watcher, he was), and Gunn seemed more comfortable with the other two than Angel himself had ever felt. When he had first convinced them to move their offices back to the hotel, he'd hurtled back and forth between pure joy to be among them again, and a crushing sadness that he had shut himself away and missed so much. The weeks that passed eased that sensation some, and he was once again, at least nominally, part of the team. But still, he sometimes felt like a stranger, getting to know once-familiar loved-ones again.
"What do you think, Angel?" Gunn asked as he attempted to scrape goo off his axe, "You've seen more slimy demons than the three of us put together."
Another smile burst in his heart. However slow and arduous the rebuilding of their family ties was, everyone had been putting their best effort into it, going out of their way to include him whenever possible... honoring the special things he brought to their team, just as they did each other.
A couple of years ago, their reaching out would have made him *really* uncomfortable. On the outside was where he was used to being -- where he felt like he belonged -- and he preferred it that way. It wasn't until he had lost the privilege of being on the inside, and started to want it back again, that he realized how much he wanted--no, *needed*--to be included.
Yet another bit of true humanity that he had discovered within himself.
Pushing away his existential thoughts, Angel quickly rifled through his extensive mental filing cabinet of creatures that he had encountered over the centuries.
"I'm not really familiar with either, to tell you the truth. But I know Kornaks have three or four very similar subspecies... almost identical except for a few minor details."
"You mean minor details like, oh, say... the fact they don't *die* when you chop their heads off with a really big axe?" Cordy shot at Wes, who gave her a smirk in response.
"Exactly," Angel confirmed with a chuckle, "Check the Kornaks, and you might be able to get a better handle on the Pootiadiep subspecies."
The front door creaked, and everyone looked up to watch Kate enter.
"Don't bother. I think I figured out what we're dealing with," the newest member of the team announced.
Kate had been a more useful addition to the group than any of them would have imagined. Between her years of detective experience, her extensive network of contacts around the city, and her most recent obsession with the supernatural, she had come to contribute far more than her fair share of assistance to their work.
As bizarre as the concept might have seemed a few months ago, she fit right in with their oddball family, serving as the perfect mediator between Cordelia and Wesley when their bickering got out of hand, and the best padding against hard feelings that Angel could have asked for himself during their transitional period. In fact, since his return to the fold, his former nemesis had become his most staunch defender, surpassing even Cordy in protectiveness of him. Angel almost found her enthusiasm toward him embarrassing.
But mostly, it was heartwarming. They exchanged a smile as Kate approached and took the seat beside him, giving him a pat on the knee.
"How ya feeling today?" she asked.
She asked the same question every day when she arrived. And every day, Angel was honest with her about his condition and state of mind. There was a strange connection between them, now, the origin of which was clear to everyone, even if the underlying meaning of it wasn't. Wesley was still trying to figure out how Angel had entered Kate's apartment without an invitation, since she hadn't been dead when he found her. He continually refused his colleagues' insistence that it was divine intervention.
"Nonsense!" he would splutter, "The Powers almost *never* directly intervene in the business of lower beings like that!"
Angel didn't bother reminding him of the dozen or so times They had stepped right into his life: his introduction to Buffy, his return from Hell, the mysterious Christmas snowfall, and the Day That Wasn't, to name only a few. Wes was a researcher on a rampage, and nothing would deter him from finding the answer he wanted to find.
The vampire suspected that his friend was already convinced, but his skeptic's training forced him to look beyond the simplest answer.
He turned his attention back to Kate. "What've you got?"
The tall blonde pulled a small notebook from her back pocket, and flipped it open. "I tracked down Merl and hit him up for word on the new subway dwellers."
"You got Merl to talk?" Wesley interrupted. "How? He vowed never to assist us again!"
Kate give him a look. "I *hit* him up." She turned a wry grin on Angel. "He was really very helpful."
"I'll bet," Angel chuckled.
"And... what'd you knock out of him?" Gunn asked.
"Well, after he was done threatening to sue us for the cost of his plastic surgery, he told me that the underground has got a few new occupants -- including these weird Pootiadieps."
"Ha!" Wesley yelped, "I TOLD you they were Pootiadiep!"
Kate cocked an eyebrow at him. "They are, but they're not. They're from a different dimension."
"Get out!" Gunn remarked.
"I'm serious. Apparently, some big mojomaker is getting ready to open a tightly locked portal to his particular branch office of Hell, and that's bringing all the evil things from that dimension who are trapped in this one running for a chance to hitch a ride home. Guess they don't like Earth much."
Angel's brow furrowed. "A dimensional portal. Did he know which one?"
Kate shook her head. "Nope. Guess that part's not common gossip. All he's heard is that the stars are just about in the right alignment, and all this demon bigwig needs now is a few human sacrifices and the key to open it. So all these weird demons are working on snatching the right candidates off the street to offer as bus fare."
"Lovely," Gunn grumbled, setting his axe on the floor. "Do we know who the Professor Snape is?"
Wes, Cordy, Angel and Kate all looked at him strangely.
"Don't you people *read*?" he snapped.
Kate turned away. "If you mean who the Big Bad is, no."
Angel sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "That would explain Cordy's vision. But we need more to go on than, 'some wizard is conducting some ritual to open the portal to some demon dimension.'"
"Like precisely which astrological alignment we're speaking of," Wesley ventured.
"And what the key is," Cordy added. "Maybe the Bizarro Pootiadieps know, and that's why I saw them in my vision instead of the wicked witch."
"Maybe," Angel agreed, "What we need to do is get a hold of one of the big uglies and find out what they know. If we can claim this key before they do, we might be able to shut them down."
The phone rang. "I'm thinking it's not going to be a nice, big, well-marked brass key sitting somewhere easy to find," Cordy lamented as she went to answer it.
"Probably a fair guess," Kate concurred.
"Angel investigations, we help the hopeless. How can we help... Oh, hey, Dawn! How are you?"
Angel's head shot up at the mention of the youngest Summers' name. Damn it. Every time he started to believe he could get Buffy out of his mind...
"What?! When?! How?!" Cordy's rapid-fire questions were edged with shock, and Angel immediately felt a cold dread clutch at his gut.
((Buffy's little sister calling.))
He got up.
Cordelia started to cry. "Oh, no! Oh... Dawnie... no..."
Angel walked toward her.
((She can't be dead. I would know.))
"I'm so sorry. Oh... God, Dawn... I don't believe it!"
He took another step, ignoring the others as they rose and converged on the sobbing brunette.
Why was he suddenly so damned heavy? Why couldn't he move any faster? Why did he ever leave Sunnydale? How would he be able to go on if something happened to Buffy?
A million years later, he arrived at Cordelia's side. She was shaking, tears running down her face as she listened to the girl at the other end of the line.
Angel stood statue still beside her, waiting, his mind going a thousand miles an hour even as abject terror froze every other inch of him.
He should have called her. He should have asked to see her. He at least should have told her how much he loved her one last time.
"Of course. He's right..." Cordy turned and jumped to find him hovering so close. "...here."
Angel stared at the phone she offered, and heard his friend speaking to him as though they were on opposite ends of a very long tunnel.
"It's Dawn..."
((Buffy can't be dead. Buffy can't be dead. Buffy can't be dead.))
"She really needs to talk to you..."
((I should have told her. I should have been there. I should have...))
He forced his hand to accept the receiver, and drag it to his ear.
((Oh, God, please. Don't let it be Buffy. Please.))
"Dawn?" he whispered.
"Angel? Ohmygod... OhGod, I'm so glad you're there. We need your help, please!" The girl broke down and sobbed. "It's Buffy... I... she's... my... please! Angel, we need you!"
He completely forgot how to breathe. It took all of his will to even find his voice again. "Dawn... what happened to Buffy? Calm down and tell me..."
"Angel? Is that you?" Giles' voice said. Dawn's crying faded into the background.
"G-giles... What's... did something... happen to Buffy?" he choked out.
((I can't do it. I can't do it knowing she's not there. I can't hear this. I can't...))
The Watcher sighed deeply. "Yes, I'm afraid so."
Angel felt his entire body begin to quake. Kate placed a comforting hand on his arm, as Gunn held a still-crying Cordelia. Wesley stood nearby, apprehension clear on his features as he listened to the one-sided conversation.
"For God's sake, please, Giles," Angel pleaded, his own tears quickly threatening to get the better of him, "Is she all right? She's not..."
((Oh, Christ. Don't say it. Don't say dead. She can't be dead.))
"No, no. It's nothing like that. Although... we are beginning to fear greatly for her mental health. Angel... Joyce passed away several days ago. Rather suddenly, of an aneurysm. Buffy herself found the body, and I'm afraid... she's not taking it very well. She's begun to..."
The Englishman went on, but Angel barely heard what he was saying. Half of his mind was reciting every barely-remembered prayer from his childhood, giving thanks to whatever Gods would listen that Buffy wasn't dead, while the other half was desperately trying to process the information that Joyce Summers *was*.
"We were hoping that you might... come. Talk to her," Giles was concluding.
Angel exhaled a breath that was at least five minutes old. "Of course. We'll be there in three hours," he replied, and hung up.
The others huddled in a tight, frightened circle around him.
"Has something ha-happened to... Buffy?" Wesley asked softly, causing Cordelia to cry harder.
The vampire glanced quickly at each of his dearest friends, then spun on his heel and marched upstairs, calling back over his shoulder, "Pack a bag. We're going to Sunnydale."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Part 3
((Roundhouse kick to head. Duck low. Sweep feet. Vamp falls. Jump up to crouch. Plunge stake upward. WHOOSH!))
Buffy stood and gave the cemetery's newest pile of dust a satisfied smirk, tucking her stake back into the waistband of her jeans.
"Who says there isn't order in the universe?" she asked nobody in particular. She pulled out her list of names of the recently deceased who'd died of "severe neck lacerations" which Willow had been kind enough to print out from the Coroner's Office for her, and put a line through "Joseph Wesler, Sr." with her pen. (( Next up: "Marjorie Johnson."))
This was exactly the way Death should work, in her opinion. A nice, tidy list of candidates in date order. Easy to predict. Converted to dust at exactly the planned moment. No surprises. They clawed their way out, she greeted them -- Final Death herself -- and poof, they were gone.
Of course, their initial death at the hands of some random vamp was doubtlessly unexpected. Joe Sr. was probably rushing home from work, late again, knowing his wife ((of 8 years, Kimberly, according to his obit the morning before last)), would be really pissed that he missed dinner *again*, and little Joe Jr. ((aged 6)) had that book report on "Where the Wild Things Are" due that he needed help with. So poor Big Joe was hurrying, not paying attention, dashing through his life the way he always did, and BAM! In a split second, he was a bloodless corpse, and Kimberly was crushed into numbness, and little Joey would never get help from his Dad to finish his book report or even see his Daddy again.
Buffy shook the thought away. There was no Joe Wesler, just "fledgling #5" on the list, and she wasn't going to terminate Marjorie Johnson, but "newbie #6." She refused to imagine Marjorie at all, considering the girl was younger than Buffy herself when she bit it -- so to speak, and had been walking home from track practice, trekking through the wrong demon-infested park at the wrong moment...
"Okay, that's it. Number 6, just get your ass up and let's get to it, alright? I have dishes waiting," the Slayer informed the brand new headstone ((Beloved Daughter)), and didn't at all consider the fact that 8 or 9 rows away, at plot #414 ((Nice trees)), her mother's head stone was to be erected first thing tomorrow. ((Roses and Angels model B17, inscription - `Joyce Marie Summers, 1960-2001, cherished Friend and Mother'. The one with the big angel on top with the fully spread wings, because everyone deserved to have an angel watching over them, and...))
Buffy bit her lip until she drew blood, and that particular train of thought vanished. Thinking about dead mom was strictly off limits, and thoughts of anything remotely angelic, even more so.
It wasn't that she didn't miss her ((with a pain that made her feel like her guts were ripping open)), it was just that -- who had the time or energy to dwell on it right now? Not her.
((I mean, I've got Dawn to think about -- in both an upset little sister and a key to an alternate dimension sense. And then, there's Glory... and the funeral and everything. Too much to do for moping, and besides, moping won't do anybody any good. It won't fill out the insurance forms or get the bills paid or keep the vamp population from exploding while I take a couple of minutes to cry...))
She had no intention of wasting a moment of what little time she might have left thinking about things she couldn't change. There were plenty of things she *could* have some effect on waiting for her attention.
Like the future serial killer who was starting to rise beneath her feet.
"It's about time," she complained to the turning earth, then stepped back to wait.
The newborn popped out of the grave with a snarl and an explosion of clay.
"Morning, sleepyhead," she deadpanned, "Just in time to meet your maker... metaphorically."
Buffy raised her stake and went to leap, but before her feet left the ground, strong arms grabbed her from behind, and a masculine hiss carried on putrid breath tickled her ear.
"Slayer!"
She kicked backward, throwing the newcomer off balance, and used the forward momentum to flip over the fledgling's head, landing on her feet facing both of them.
((Looks like the boyfriend bought it, too)), she observed as Sire and Childe stood together to square off against her, ((How romantic.))
It was the last coherent thought she had as the two young vampires charged her, and all her focus shifted into Slayer mode. Nothing in her brain but impulses shooting to her muscles -- instructions for strikes, counterstrikes, kicks, jumps and spins. Adrenaline screaming through her blood. These two were dead, her mom was dead, everybody she'd ever loved was gone, but she was still here, and this... the thrill of the fight, the sensation of sharp wood piercing flesh that would never rot, and in a blink, degenerating from solid to...
((Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.))
When her logical awareness broke through the combat haze, Buffy stood motionless, still shaking from the rush of the battle, and watched the remains of two former human beings float for a moment on the night breeze before disappearing into the earth.
Funny. These two late bloodsuckers were people, just a few days ago. Buffy had probably seen them at the supermarket, or passed them walking down the street, and never gave them a second thought... if she even gave them a first one. They probably used to walk, hand in hand, through this very graveyard. They probably pressed right up against that mausoleum over there, lips locked in love and passion, and never considered that any minute, they would be indistinguishable from the dirt under their feet. Two whole people who used to be alive, now mulch for the too-green grass. People with lives and families who missed them every minute of every day, and wanted to cry so badly... wanted to curl up in a ball and die, but they couldn't because there were mouths to feed and relatives to inform and vampires to slay, and besides... death was just something that happened. Everybody died, sooner or later, just some ((way too many)) sooner than others, and thinking about it or crying over it didn't change that, and they were really numb anyway. Wondering why and screaming `It's not FAIR!' to the heavens wouldn't stop Dawn from having nightmares or make her father stop being a selfish idiot, or bring Angel back so he could hold her, or...
((STOP!!!))
Taking a deep breath, Buffy slammed down the shutters in her mind, and pulled the list of risers out of her pocket again. She carefully crossed off #6, added #7 "Unknown" below it, then crossed that off, too.
"End of list," she announced to herself, crumpled up the paper and tossed it over her shoulder. Glancing at her watch, she saw it was barely 11 -- way ahead of schedule. The Slayer pulled another list out of the opposite pocket, crossed off "Patrol", and turned to complete the last task for the night: "Information gathering at Willy's."
She was so busy reading the list in her hand, she didn't see the lone figure lurking in the bushes until she ran right into it. Her vampire alarms immediately kicked to life ((a little late!)) and she fell into fighting stance, stake in hand, before she even looked up.
"Damn it, Spike!" she barked at the shadow. "Don't DO that!"
The blond vampire looked at her askance as he took a long drag off his cigarette. "Nice kill, Slayer. Not your best work, but..."
Buffy scowled at him and kept right on walking. He was *not* on her list of things to dust tonight -- although she still hoped someday soon he would be. "I don't have time for you."
((You don't have much time left.))
((Where the Hell did that come from?))
She took another couple of steps with Spike close on her heels, before something occurred to her. Spike was *here*. Stalking *her*. And that meant...
She spun, wild-eyed, almost causing him to plow right into her. "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE??? You're supposed to be watching DAWN!" she screeched.
Spike shrugged and crushed his smoke out under his boot. "Changed my mind. Figured watching a Slayer going nutters was more fun than hanging out with a depressed young teen, waiting for absolutely nothing to happen."
Buffy's face changed, melting from annoyance to rage to utter terror in the space of a moment. Without comment, she turned and sprinted full speed out of the cemetery, and toward her house.
((Oh God. Dawn. Dawn's alone. Dawn could die. Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.))
Despite his vampiric speed, Spike could barely keep up with the panicking Slayer. "She's fine! The others are... oh, bugger it."
In mere moments, they were crashing through the Summers' front door, barreling into the living room to find...
Six shocked faces looking up from a game of Monopoly.
"DAWN! OH GOD!" Buffy yelped, and grabbed her sister in a crushing embrace.
"Buffy... What's wrong? We were just..." the girl attempted to mollify.
Buffy held her out at arm's length, inspecting her frantically. "Are you okay? I was so worried! How long have..."
She finally noticed everyone staring at her, and took a step away.
"We were just playing Monopoly," Anya explained, "The money's not real, but... it's still satisfying to hoard it all." She gestured toward the seat where Dawn had recently been. "See? She's even winning. I mean, we were sort of letting her, but... OW!" The ex-demon shot a glare at Xander, who had just roughly elbowed her.
Buffy wasn't listening, anyway. Hysteria still pumped through her veins, but as she turned to look at Spike again, it quickly morphed to fury.
"You were supposed to WATCH HER!" she shouted, advancing on him.
He stepped back, holding his hands up defensively. "Seems to me you're the one needs watching, these days."
"I don't CARE what you think!" Buffy shrieked. "I can take care of MYSELF! SHE'S just a kid! What if Glory came for her, huh? You promised you would stay here and protect her! You PROMISED!"
Spike opened his mouth to respond, but before he could, Buffy leapt, knocking him to the floor, and kneeled on his chest as she pounded his face, screaming, "YOU PROMISED YOU'D STAY! YOU PROMISED!"
Giles and Xander jumped to their feet and rushed over, their combined strength required to pull Buffy off the defenseless vampire. Once free of her attack, he sat up and scowled at her, wiping the blood off his nose and chin.
"Bloody Hell, Slayer!" he cried.
Buffy stood, restrained by her two friends, shaking uncontrollably, and muttering, "If you let anything happen to her, I'll fucking kill you. You promised, you bastard."
Giles spun her to face him and gently gave her a shake. "Buffy, stop this! Dawn is FINE! Look for yourself!"
She glanced, wild-eyed, at a terrified Dawn, now flanked by Willow, Tara, and Anya.
Her eyes returned to the Watcher's face once more. "He was... supposed to be... here. He promised he wouldn't leave her."
Giles' gaze was gentle. "We were all here with her. She was in no danger. We asked Spike to look after you on patrol, instead."
Buffy watched Xander help the blond to his feet. "Me? Why?"
"Because we're worried about you, Buffy," Willow replied, moving closer, "You're trying to do everything by yourself, and... it's too much!!"
The Slayer blinked and looked around at all the concerned (and one really pissed off) faces surrounding her. All of them... worried... about her...
The moment it registered in her mind, it was like someone flipped her emotional off-switch. Her body immediately stopped shaking, she stood up straight, gently pried herself from Giles' grasp, and gave them all a perfunctory smile.
"I'm sorry guys. I didn't mean to scare you. I promise, I'm fine. Really. I was just worried about Dawn."
"You're not fine," Xander corrected her.
"You can't keep on like this by yourself," Willow added, "We want to *help* you. Your *mom* just died, and you need time to..."
Buffy held up a hand to cut her off. "Guys. Thanks, but... I swear, I feel fine. I'm just trying to keep busy, that's all."
Dawn sagged down onto the couch and folded her legs up beneath her. Tara and Anya sat on either side of the girl, each putting an arm around her shoulders. She finally buried her face in the blonde witch's shoulder and started to cry.
"We know that all of this is difficult for you," Giles interjected softly, "But no good purpose would be served by driving yourself into the ground, would it?"
He watched as the closest thing he would ever have to a daughter turned to look at him once more, and again, he could see an abyss of pain threatening just beneath the surface of the bloodshot orbs.
"I just... can't," she murmured vaguely.
Willow put her arms around her best friend. "You're exhausted, Buffy. At least... lie down? Try to get some sleep? I promise, we'll all stay here and keep watch."
Buffy blinked at the redhead, but didn't reply.
Dawn stood up and approached her sister. "Buffy? I... I'm... tired. Will you... sleep with... me?" she sniffled.
She looked deep into the girl's blurry eyes. Her baby sister. The only thing Buffy had in the world. The only thing left that was really important.
Without a word, she reached out and pulled her into her arms, and led her upstairs.
The others watched them go, and then dejectedly returned to their seats, subdued and lost in their own thoughts.
Except for Spike, who leaned in the doorway with his head tilted back, plugging his nose. "Don' s`pose any a you brainiacs thought to call the Great Poufter," he complained bitterly, "Seems to me his big, brooding mass is jes' about what that crazy bi... Buffy needs right now."
"We've contacted him," Giles informed the glowering vampire, "He's on his way."
"S'bout bloody time," he grumbled, letting his head drop and checking his hand for blood. "That's the thanks I get for helping you lot. As usual."
Xander sighed and pulled Anya close to his side. "You may want to mark this on your calendars, guys, because I never thought you'd hear these words out of my mouth, but..." he glanced forlornly up at the stairwell, "I hope Dead Boy gets here soon."
"Indeed," Giles agreed, and set to putting their abandoned game away.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Part 4
It took almost an hour of constant sobbing for Dawn to finally relax enough to fall asleep, and even when she did, it was a shallow and fitful slumber. Buffy sat on the edge of her little sister's bed, watching her toss and turn, and envied her ability to even rest that little bit.
She wished she could do that. Just... stop. Just for a minute. She was so tired...every small movement hurt, and eventually, she knew her body would stage a revolt, and the end result would be her collapse from the stress. But what else could she do? Who else was going to take care of things? Her *dad*?
Her mind was full of a myriad of musings... another reason she couldn't stop. Ugly, dark, punishing thoughts. A billion regrets and 'what ifs' and 'I wishes'... but beyond those, even, her fondest wish of all was that she'd continue to be unable to really feel *anything*. Half the reason she didn't want to feel was the guilt - so much of it, in fact, that she was starting to wonder if she'd ever done anything right in her life at all.
Not all of it was new or mom-related, either. There were ancient, little regrets that snuck up on her like thieves in the shadows of her mind. All the trouble she'd gotten into in LA that finally split her parents up... putting her friends through Hell because they cared about her. She felt bad that Merrick died defending her. She felt bad for all the mean things she'd ever said to her mom, and all the times she'd been difficult, or made Joyce worry. She felt bad that she had to send Angel to Hell, and that when he came back, she hadn't loved him enough to make him want to stay. She felt bad for hurting Riley... for never really being able to love him the way he wanted.
But what she blamed herself worst of all for was not actually feeling any of these things. She knew about them, of course... she had all the requisite thoughts, but it was like a slideshow in her brain... she was standing somewhere outside her emotions, looking at a long list of facts and pictures without any substance at all. She was hollow... empty. There was nothing flowing through her but dust, as if her heart had finally just given up on her cursed existence, and moved out.
The numbness was what kept her going. Buffy couldn't sit still and think about all the things she'd lost or never would have that she couldn't find the energy to care about. If she kept moving, everybody remained safe and as happy as they could be, and she didn't have to be concerned about the fact that she couldn't feel.
Now even her body was rebelling... her Slayer senses were going haywire. She started getting that weird tingling in her toes that spread upward, like somebody ratcheted her circulation up a notch, and her womb cramped tight, her heart taking up a rapid beat...
Of all the damn things she should be feeling, why *that*? Spike wasn't vampire enough to set off her internal alarms anymore... hence the fact that he'd been so easily able to sneak up on her in the cemetery.
She sighed. Maybe she should take a sleeping pill or something to force her body to rest. Her friends were right, at least on that point. If her extra senses went all woggy now, she'd never be able to face Glory when the time came.
A soft knock at the door interrupted her thoughts. Buffy got up and cracked it open to find Willow on the other side.
"Hey, Will," she whispered.
"Hey. Is she..." the redhead nodded toward the bed behind her.
"Yeah," Buffy replied, and slipped out the door to join her best friend in the hall. "What's up? Is everything okay?"
Willow nodded, a strange little smile on her face. Buffy could immediately tell that her best friend was hiding something. Even after all these years, the witch still couldn't lie to save her life.
"Will... what's going on?"
She was barely repressing a smile. "You should probably come downstairs."
Buffy frowned. "Why, so everybody can yell at me about how unnaturally I'm behaving? No thanks."
Her friend's smile slipped at her sharp tone.
The Slayer felt bad about that, too. "I'm sorry. What is it?"
"Just... come down. Someone's here to see you."
Buffy shook her head. "I'm really not up for company."
Willow's face brightened so much, it was impossible to dismiss it. She took a hold of her best friend's arm, and led her toward the stairs.
"You really need to see this person," the redhead informed her.
*Now* Buffy felt something... nervous. Who the Hell could be there that would make Willow so jumpy?
Of course... this was the Hellmouth, and it was the middle of the night... so pretty much anyone would.
She shrugged and let her lead. It wasn't like she was going to sleep anyway.
***
Angel hadn't felt this awkward in... well, a couple of weeks, at least. But it was different than those first uncomfortable days with his friends -- Cordelia, Wesley, Gunn and Kate were *his* friends, and however angry they might have been, they *wanted* him there -- otherwise they would never have returned at all. And they certainly wouldn't have risked their lives to save him from the Feast of Souls.
But now... He knew full well that he was only sitting in Buffy's living room because they considered him their last resort. Not that the group wasn't trying to hide their misgivings. They were all perfectly polite. Even Xander had repressed his characteristic 'Angel-hating glower' when he shook the vampire's hand. But he could still smell their discomfort in his company... a clear pheromonal signal that he wasn't entirely welcome, and under different circumstances, he wouldn't be gladly received at all.
However reluctantly, for now, they accepted his presence. And as they took turns explaining the affairs of recent days, he understood why.
Giles did most of the talking, explaining briefly things that needed a great deal more than a momentary explanation. For example -- just what the Hell his GrandChilde was doing here, hovering around the doorway like some demonic bodyguard, glaring stakes at Angel. The chip scenario was so ridiculous he would have laughed, in almost any other situation. As it was, though, he simply made a mental note to keep a very sharp eye on the younger demon. Behavior modification or no, Spike was *not* to be trusted.
The brief conversation they shared while Willow went upstairs to get Buffy was more than enough to shatter his heart. How Joyce had been so desperately ill, and then seemed to recover completely. How Buffy had returned home one afternoon to find her mother's dead body splayed out on the couch... how she'd had to fetch Dawn from school... the episode at the morgue that night...
But worse than that was everyone's description of how Buffy was handling it -- or, rather, not handling it. As usual, his love had chosen to bear the entire weight of her burdens on her small shoulders, not allowing anyone to take even the smallest responsibility out of her hands.
"We're terrified, frankly," Giles concluded, "There are dire events unfolding in Sunnydale, and..."
The Watcher stopped at a creak from the stairs. Angel's heart squeezed tightly as he felt her approaching... that tingling in his toes, and the defensive clutch in his gut... heard her slow footsteps echoing in the hallway. He forced his eyes up to the staircase.
There she was. So different from the picture of her he tried not to dwell on, in his mind... and yet... still exactly the same. Her presence instantly filled the room with energy, enveloping his entire being in warmth, just the way it always had.
Angel stared at her, unable to move, speak, breathe, or even think anything beyond ((God... she's so beautiful...))
It had been such a long time since he'd laid eyes on her. Too long. So much had happened in between that forced him to push her memory away, but seeing her again... that unique glow all around her, even through her obvious exhaustion...
It all came back. Time stopped and flashed suddenly backwards, five years of his life washing through him in that single, electric moment when their eyes met across the room.
((Is there a problem, ma'am? Not as easy as it looks, is it? Do you think I want anything to happen to you? Do you think I could stand it? I am NOT jealous! What, vampires don't get jealous? You're the one freaky thing in my freaky world that still makes sense to me. I love you. I try not to, but I can't stop. You know what it's time for now? MY FUN! Buffy... what's happening? I don't remember. Close your eyes... Just this once, let me be strong...))
And he had been, for her. The only time in his miserable existence, up to that point, when he'd had any sense at all, and it was because of this tiny, magnificent creature standing, wide-eyed and trembling, a few feet away.
Everyone stayed completely still and silent.
"Angel?" Buffy said softly, in that same old way she had that made the word seem like an important question, rather than an observation.
Though his throat closed tight, and her pain shot through him like holy water in his veins, he gave her a tentative smile as he got to his feet.
Buffy blinked furiously up at him as he stepped toward her, as if she was trying to clear her vision of a suspected apparition.
"Hi, Buffy."
They were barely three feet apart when he halted.
"You... you're... here," she whispered.
He nodded, his gaze riveted to hers. "I am." He could see the agony... the weariness she was trying so frantically to hide written clearly in her face, like a book that only he could read.
Buffy was so tense that she shook, as if half her body was telling her to run, and the other half battling to force her to stay. Angel wanted nothing more desperately than to grab her... crush her in his arms and shield her from all this. From the circumstances of her life, which she'd never deserved or asked for... protect her from the pain... from mortality itself.
"Why?" she asked, so softly that he wasn't certain any of the humans in the room would have heard her. "Why are you here?"
He took a deep breath and straightened his posture, fighting to rein in his roiling emotions and scattered thoughts.
((I've come to take you away from all this. I love you, and I miss you so much, sometimes I think I might die from it. I don't care about being noble, or doing the right thing... I just don't want to be without you anymore.))
"Dawn called me. She told us about... your mom. We came as soon as we could."
Buffy's wild gaze ticked from his face to where Cordelia and Wesley sat on the sofa. As if her notice was their cue, the pair rose and joined the tense circle of Slayer and vampire.
"My sincere condolences, Buffy," Wesley said, leaning in to give her a gentle peck on the cheek. "Your mother was a very special person. I wish that I'd had the opportunity to know her better."
"Oh, Buffy!" Cordy yelped, and threw her arms around the smaller woman. "I'm so sorry! I liked your mom so much!"
Angel hung back, more than a little envious of their ability to express themselves so simply. Buffy stood rigid in Cordelia's embrace, her eyes still fixed on him.
The others sat quietly, watching the way their friend was shaking... how full her eyes were. Surely she would break any moment, and the true healing could begin... now that *he* was here.
But their hopes were dashed in a moment, when Buffy glanced away from the vampire, and returned Cordy's hug with enthusiasm. When she looked up once more, her eyes were clear, and her cardboard smile had returned.
Angel almost took a step away from her when he saw it.
"Thanks, guys," she gushed, pulling out of Cordy's arms, "It was really nice of you to come."
"We wanted to pay our respects," Wesley told her, "And to be of whatever assistance we may."
Her fake smile grew almost to an eerie leer. "That's really sweet, but... I have everything under control. You're welcome to stay here, of course... the funeral's the day after tomorrow, and there can never be too many sandwich makers, right? I can make up the guestroom for you, Cor, and... you guys willhave to sleep on the couches," she shrugged, "I hope you don't mind. But, to make up for it, I've got a ton of really fluffy pillows..." Before anyone could respond to her babbling, Buffy dashed into the hallway, and came back loaded down with bedclothes. "You guys must be wiped! I'm sorry Dawn called you so late. I would have called myself, but I've been so busy..."
She tossed the mountain of linens on the couch, seemingly oblivious to all of the frightened faces watching her, even when she turned to look at the newcomers. "Would you like some coffee? And I made muffins this morning." The manic Slayer spun to Cordy and gave her a hollow chuckle. "Low fat cranberry. Not that you need low fat! You look *great*, by the way! I LOVE your hair!" She brushed the brunette's shorn locks quickly as she hurried by. "Angel, if you're hungry, I'm sure Spike can go fetch something from his crypt, right, Spike?" She gave another empty laugh that echoed behind her as she disappeared down the hall.
The crowd left in her wake exchanged looks, the Sunnydale faction's clearly saying, 'See?'
Angel stared at the last place Buffy stood, overwhelmed by the fear and sorrow he could scent on her skin... hear ringing beneath the cheerful tone of her continued rambling.
"Wesley, do you prefer 'Breakfast' or 'Earl Grey'? I forget!" she called from the kitchen.
The younger Englishman flashed a panicked look to Angel. "Er... really, Buffy, that's not..."
"Oh, please! You guys drove all this way, the least I can do is boil some water! And Cor -- wait 'til you see the cappuccino maker my mom bought a couple of weeks ago!"
The vampire looked up at the others, his face a mask of misery.
"This manic behavior is precisely what we we've been so concerned about, Angel," Giles explained. "She's been like this ever since..."
Without waiting for him to finish, Angel nodded, turned, and followed the path Buffy had just taken down the hall. When he arrived in the kitchen, he found her careening about like a cyclone of domesticity, tossing muffins in the toaster oven to warm, making tea, coffee, and cappuccino simultaneously, and pulling cups and plates out of the cupboard as if they might run away if she didn't capture them quickly enough.
He stood in the doorway for a long moment, and listened to their ghosts.
((Do you love me? What? Do you? I love you... I don't know if I trust you. Maybe you shouldn't do either.))
"Buffy..."
She spared a quick glance over her shoulder, but didn't stop moving, ducking instead into the fridge and pawing through the shelves. "Oh, good. Could you do me a favor and grab the tea tray on top of the china cabinet? I can't reach."
Angel hesitated for a second, then complied with her request, setting the silver platter on the island before moving to the other side, closer to her.
"Buffy, stop," he commanded softly.
She did and turned to look at him, her arms loaded with jam, butter, fresh fruit, and a carton of milk. He stepped forward and unloaded her cargo, setting everything on the counter beside her.
"What are you doing?" she objected, "I need to..."
He placed a firm, but gentle hand on each of her shoulders. "You need to stop this. We don't need tea, or coffee, or anything else. We're worried about you."
Buffy stared at one of his hands out of the corner of her eye for a moment, as though she couldn't understand what it was, or why it was there, before she gazed up at him once more.
((God... his eyes are so dark. I'd forgotten how really dark they are. And his hands are so big...))
She gently dislodged herself from his grip. "Me? I'm fine. If you want to worry about somebody, worry about Dawn. She's too young to understand any of this. Me, on the other hand," she quickly moved away again, and began pouring coffee into mugs she'd lined up on the counter. "Me and Death are old buds, remember? Really, Angel... everybody's just overreacting. I mean, yeah, I'm busy, but... not that much more than normal. I have a funeral to plan and a house to take care of, and Dawn's just coming apart..."
"Buffy," Angel interrupted.
Her chatter ceased and she turned once more, her hands braced tightly on the counter behind her. She shivered to see that look in his eyes... that wise, loving, concerned, uniquely 'Angel' look that made her stomach drop right to her toes, and a million moments where he had comforted her when they were... oh, God, so young...flashed through her mind.
((I'll never let anything happen to you if I can help it.))
"Why are you looking at me like that?" she snapped, "I said I'm *fine*."
Angel frowned. "You don't look fine to me. Or Giles, either."
Buffy snorted and whirled back to her task. "Giles needs to learn that I'm not a little kid anymore, and to mind his own damn business."
A little spark of frustration lit in Angel's gut. "He's anxious over you, Buffy. Everyone is. You're not sleeping... you're not eating. You need to take care of yourself. Now, more than ever."
Without warning, she spun and hurled one of the coffee cups at him. Angel ducked just in time, and it smashed against the far wall.
“I SAID I'M FINE!" she screeched. "GOD! Why doesn't anybody ever *listen* to me!? And what do you care, anyway? This is none of your business! You've got your shiny new life in L.A. -- what the Hell did you come back here for? I don't need you! I stopped needing you the moment you turned your back and walked away from me!"
Her words pounded him, and inside, Angel was reeling from their implications. Old, festering wounds that had nothing to do with the death of her mother raging to the surface, propelled by her stress. Hearing them made him want to escape...or curl up on the floor and cry himself. But if there was one thing he had become proficient in over the last couple of months, it was pushing pain aside in order to focus.
He did exactly that now, and faced her wrath squarely. "I came because I care about what happens to you. I know that you hurt, Buffy... I can *feel* it.You don't have to keep it all locked inside anymore. I'm here for you."
She made a derisive sound, halfway between a sob and a bitter guffaw. "You're HERE FOR ME? Oh my God that's so RICH! That might be the funniest thing I've heard in MONTHS!" She stepped toward him and got as close to being in his face as she could, considering the disparity in their heights, and shook a finger at him as she spat, "You have NOT been HERE for me! You don't have the first CLUE what my life's been like for the past TWO YEARS!"
Angel stood his ground. "No, I don't. And I'm sorry for that. But I'm willing to listen now, if you want to tell me."
Buffy blinked and backed away, her eyes filling with tears. "What, exactly, do you want me to tell you, Angel? Huh? That my mother -- my FORTY YEAR OLD MOTHER -- dropped dead of an aneurysm, and I found her corpse on the living room couch? Oh -- or do you want to hear how when I tried to give her CPR, I crushed her ribcage? It made this really loud, disgusting crunching noise, and the 911 operator said, 'Oh, don't worry, that's normal!', and then I went and puked all over the dining room floor, and then I had to go get Dawn from school! Do you know what she did when I told her our mother was DEAD??? She fell down right there in the hall in front of all her friends, and SCREAMED like someone was ripping her guts out! Is THAT what you want me to tell you about?"
He didn't blink. "If that's what you want to say."
Her face twisted with fury as she stalked back toward him. "HOW DARE YOU? I am NOT one of your precious LOST SOULS, ANGEL! How dare you walk in here and talk to me like we're FRIENDS, and you give even HALF a SHIT about me?! Who the Hell do you think you are? You're not my FRIEND! You haven't been anything at all to me in a very long time!" She took another slow step, "You have no RIGHT to come here and tell me how I should ACT about my MOTHER DYING! You have no IDEA what I feel! You ATE YOURS!"
Angel couldn't help but flinch at that verbal blow, but still maintained his stance.
Buffy kept coming closer, her voice rising in pitch as she ranted on, "I'm TWENTY YEARS OLD, and I have NOTHING! Nothing but the fate of the whole God damn WORLD in my hands, and a FOURTEEN YEAR OLD GIRL to raise by MYSELF! I can't go back to school next semester because I have to get a job to support us! THAT is the legacy my mother left me with!" Her voice broke, and the tears that had been gathering slid free, running in a torrent down her flushed cheeks. "So don't you DARE come waltzing in here like you CARE, and try to be all sweet and helpful and goddamn sanctimonious! YOU LEFT ME TOO, AND YOU HAVE NO RIGHT!!!"
The last word got louder, and exploded finally into a wail that made the window behind her rattle, before she collapsed, sagging toward the floor.
Angel thanked the Powers that he was quick enough to catch her, as he drew her hitching body tightly into his arms. She buried her face in his shirt, and pounded weakly on his chest.
"Why does everybody leave me? Why?" she keened, and then all words stopped as she dissolved into nothing but piteous sobs.
Angel sank down to the floor with his love in his lap, and wept right along with her, crying soft reassurances and endearments into her hair as he gently rocked her.
~~~
The crowd that had gathered in the doorway breathed a collective deep sigh of relief and crept silently down the hall, reconvening to the living room. Cordy sank down onto the couch. "Believe me when I say I *never* thought I'd think this, let alone say it out loud, but... it's really good to see them together. Angel needed this so much, after..." Her eyes went wide as she realized what she was implying, and she shot a panicked glance at the rest of the group.
Wesley was right there to pick up the slack. "He's been a bit... out of sorts, lately. I think perhaps spending time with Buffy will do him some good."
Xander leaned over Cordelia. "That's more or less what I said. But... about Buffy."
"Something's wrong with Angel?" Willow asked.
"Oh, no. Things were... difficult for a while, in our part of the state, but... we're back on an even keel again, for the most part." Wesley responded, then turned to Giles, "Although, Mr. Giles, perhaps I can consult with you regarding a new case we're working on. With respect to demons from a parallel dimension."
Giles' face perked up. "Parallel dimensions? Certainly! As a matter of fact, we're faced with a similar sort of problem ourselves. A Hellgod, if you can imagine."
The younger Englishman became excited and shifted to sit next to the elder. "A Hellgod? Fascinating!"
The remaining people in the room rolled their eyes at one another.
"Bor-ing!" Anya announced, eliciting a look from her tactless predecessor, Cordelia. Which caused Willow to grin wider than she had in weeks.
"Well, I do believe that's our cue to slip away before this rockin' party gets too out of hand," Xander declared. "Giles? We're taking off."
The Watcher peered up from his conversation. "Yes. Do get some rest. And stay together, please. Be careful, and if anything untoward happens, beep me immediately."
"Got it, ' Dad'. Untowardly warning system on. See you later, Cor. Try not to have too much fun without us," he quipped, ignoring the return smirk he received from his ex, and herded the others toward the door, sparing a last glance in the direction of the kitchen as they left.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Part 5
Angel wondered, for a moment -- had he ever done this for her before? Cradled her like a child, so tiny and boneless in his arms, the only sign of life her soft hitching as she wept with her face buried in his chest? His shirt was already soaked through, and the damp stung his skin like holy water -- had he ever seen her appear so utterly hopeless?
As he carried her up the stairs, hushed, excited tones drifted from the living room -- Giles and Wesley whispering. As he passed, he caught a glimpse of Cordelia and Spike, sitting at a safe distance from one another on opposite ends of the couch, playing cards.
Surreal... so much about the past four hours had been out of time... out of place, in his mind. From Dawn's phone call -- that endless minute he spent plunging into a cold pit of almost unbearable loss -- to the long, tense car ride to Sunnydale, which he'd spent lamenting the fact that he hadn't bought a sports car, because, goddamn it, Buffy needed him, and his ancient heap of junk did little more than crawl across the miles.
And now, there was this... laying his love gently down on the bed, gazing down at her as her long-remembered eyes, now red and swollen, looked back at him... Filled with tears and still-not-believing... brimming with the same unquenchable need for answers that he had been consumed with not so long ago. He could hardly believe that he was here... looking at her. He went through the motions of tucking her under the covers, but felt as though he was watching himself from far away... a dreamer on the outside, looking in at the dream.
"Stay with me?" she whispered.
That soft, hurting sound tore at the edges of his soul. How could he deny her anything when she spoke to him like that? He never could... not since that first time he heard her magical voice.
((Yeah, there's a problem! Why are you following me?))
"Of course," he promised, and sat down on the edge of the bed.
Buffy kept staring at him, her eyes filled with questions that he knew he would never have the answers for, but she remained silent. He took her hand and raised it softly to his lips. With a sigh, her lids fluttered shut, breath and heartbeat slowing as her body finally drifted into badly needed sleep.
Yes, he would stay with her. This time, for as long as she needed him. Until the worst had passed, and the ground beneath her feet was solid and steady once more. Or at least... as stable as their violent, unpredictable lives could ever get.
It hurt to look at her... he was filled with that same sweet pain that she had always engendered in him, but now... now it was sharper. Knowing that if he wanted to, he could lie down beside her... he could kiss comfort into her lips... caress his presence, his love, into her skin... There was so little really standing between them, when the reasons why he'd left her in the first place seemed so... far away, now. So insignificant, in light of all the emotions that rushed through him just to be near her again. Just to smell her sweet, living scent, as tinged with sorrow as it was... to touch her soft hand... listen to the gentle music of her pulse and watch her butterfly lashes flutter over dreams that he hoped were sweeter than her reality. Just these simple things were like precious gifts from the Powers, and the entire world felt suddenly unreal, as if the two of them had somehow just... stepped out of it.
It had been so easy to pretend to forget when he was in L.A., a universe away, and all he had were faded memories that snuck, unbidden, into his busy thoughts from time to time. It was easy to tell himself it was over and that she was better off, when she wasn't right there beside him... when he couldn't feel her pain and need quite so acutely.
Angel never imagined she would still be so angry with him, after all this time. He assumed that she would have forgotten... put the memory of their agonizing relationship behind her once she fell in love again...
((I have someone new in my life. Someone I love. It's very different than what you and I had. And do you know what's different about it? I *know* him. I *trust* him.))
Buffy's angry words demolished something still raw and tender in his heart, that night. Ripped the scabs off barely healed wounds. But later, when he had time to think about what she'd said... and again, when he saw for himself how devoted her new lover was to her well-being... some part of him managed to be glad for her, despite the tearing anguish it caused.
But, he wondered, where was that stalwart knight, now? Why wasn't *he* the one sitting here, standing guard over her exhausted slumber? It was *his* place to be her strong shoulder, as he was the one who enjoyed the sacred privilege of her heart and... her body. So why the Hell wasn't he here?
Rage rushed through Angel like a wave of fire in his blood. Was this what he had left her for? Why he'd torn both their hearts out when he walked away, with nothing but sorrow and hope that she would find something better to fill the hole in the center of his being? Finn had everything that Angel ever dreamed of in the palms of his hands, and yet... she was alone now, with no strong arms around her, no promises of love and support but the ones that he gave her. He wasn't her lover -- Finn was -- so why was he here, playing the witless fool's part?
((The next time I see that little bastard, I'll rip his heart out and show it to him)), he vowed to himself.
But...whatever the reason and whatever his feelings about it, right now, Angel was the one by her side. Buffy needed him, and he would remain until that need subsided.
The door opened a crack, and a soft stream of light from the hallway illuminated Dawn from behind.
"Is Buffy okay?" she whispered loudly, "I heard her crying."
Angel tore himself from his beloved's side, and brought a forefinger to his lips to shush her sister as he stepped out into the hall and closed the door behind them.
"She's asleep," he answered softly, trying not to reveal the shock he felt to find that the person who stood before him wasn't the little girl he remembered so fondly, but a young woman only a few years younger than Buffy herself had been when they met.
Dawn let out a heavy sigh of relief. "Good. She's been really messed up lately." She smiled up at Angel and took his hand, giving it a warm squeeze. "I knew you'd be able to help."
He returned her smile, despite not being fully convinced that she was right. "Shouldn't you be resting?"
She rolled her eyes. "All I've done for the past week is sleep."
He chuckled and turned her toward her bedroom, herding her gently inside. "You're a teenager. You're supposed to sleep all the time. Now, get into bed."
Dawn complied, and Angel tucked her in. The moment took him back in time to his own youth, and how he would do just this for his sister on those few nights that he was home, and not keeping a barstool, or some stray wanton's bed, warm.
((Will ye tell me a story, Liam? Yer too old for fairy tales, lamb. I dunna care. Tell me one anyhow. With a prince and a dragon. And happily ever after. *chuckle* All right, then. Once upon a time, there was a fair princess named Katherine...))
Angel brushed Dawn's hair out of her face... that same burnt honey silk as Kathy's had been... and waited for her to settle in before he got up.
"Get some sleep, okay?"
"Angel..."
He stopped and gazed down at her. *Now* she looked young... so small and frightened...
"Yeah?"
"Could you, um... will you stay for a little bit? I don't want to be... I mean... just until I fall asleep?"
He retook his seat. "Sure."
"Thanks," she said with a shy smile, and laid back down. "Do you remember the first time we met?"
"How could I not? You attacked me with that double barrel, pump action super soaker squirt gun thing," he chuckled, "I had to go home and put on a dry shirt. It's sort of difficult to forget a first impression like that."
Dawn laughed, but the sound was closer to sad than amused. "Yeah. Buffy was so mad... she yelled at me for like, an hour. She said if I'd scared you off, she was going to chop me up and feed me down the garbage disposal in pieces."
After sharing a brief laugh, they lapsed into a silence that was surprisingly comfortable, until Dawn spoke once again.
"Angel...what's Hell like?"
He flinched, his eyes ticking to her in shock. "Why would you ask me that?" Certainly Buffy wouldn't have told her about...
She shrugged. "I read all Giles' journals."
He couldn't help but smile, despite the disturbing question. Fourteen years old or not, she was still fully Dawn.
"It's not fun," he replied vaguely.
She turned her too wise eyes to him, and gave him a reproachful scowl. "I'm not a little kid anymore, Angel. I want to know."
He considered her serious, determined demeanor... but not even for a moment that he would tell her anything he remembered about his time in the demon dimension. No matter how grown up she might seem, she was still little more than a child, and he could hardly bear those memories himself.
But... he had always made it his duty to be as honest with Dawn as possible. She was too smart to lie to, and it was an understandable -- albeit heartwrenching-- question for a girl who had just lost her mother.
"You don't see many humans there, if that's what you're asking."
Her pretty eyes sparkled in the moonlight as she studied him -- no doubt trying to gauge the integrity of his response.
"Oh," was her unsatisfied reply.
Angel turned to face her fully. "Dawn... if you're trying to muddle out what happens to humans when they pass on... I don't have that answer for you. I doubt anyone does, but the dead themselves."
Her little brow scrunched tight. "But you died, right? I mean... before you became a vampire..."
He nodded. "Yes, but that's different. That's not natural death."
There was no way he was going to tell her that what he remembered of his human death was... just ceasing to be. Drunken Liam on his knees with his face buried in the cold bosom of a beautiful noblewoman in a damp, filthy alley, and then... nothing. Not a single sensation until the stink of decaying earth, the clutch of furious hunger in his belly... the sound of worms crawling, and the echo of his Sire's footsteps from above called him back into the world three nights later.
But he had to tell her something. She deserved some sort of answer that would lighten the burden of her fear, if only the smallest bit, while still remaining in the realm of truth.
And then he remembered... The Feast of Souls... the sensation of freedom... the light he had discovered on the other side of the darkness. He used to believe that stories of the beloved lost waiting to meet the dead when they crossed over were fairy tales meant to comfort children exactly like the one waiting for his response... like the one he had been, lifetimes ago. Only now, he knew from experience that they were true.
"I do remember some of what my soul experienced in the ether, though..."
Dawn peered at him once more and clutched the covers tightly, her little knuckles turning white as she stared at him with silent entreaty.
"You do? What... what was it like?"
Her voice was so tiny, Angel wanted to weep for her--for all the innocence she'd lost in one fell stroke of ugly chance.
((Just like her sister before her.))
"My father came to meet me."
She sat up, her eyes wide. "Really?"
Angel nodded. "He told me that he was proud of what I'd done with my life. He looked happy... content. And he said that he..." he swallowed stiffly, refusing to let his tears interrupt, "That he's... watching over me."
Dawn's own eyes filled, her bottom lip trembling. She slowly eased back down to her pillows and gave the vampire a sad smile.
"You're just saying that to make me feel better," she accused.
"That's the reason I'm telling you, yes," he conceded, "But it's still the truth. I've never lied to you before, have I?"
She shook her head, and his heart swelled with fondness and sympathy for the girl who had once, to his heart, almost been like a sister. He leaned down and kissed her softly on the forehead.
Dawn blinked up at him as he pulled away. "You know... Riley's gone, too. He said Buffy didn't love him, and he couldn't take it, so he left."
Angel felt his jaw clench tight -- that was *not* the explanation for Finn's absence that he had been hoping for. He had no idea how to respond, so he said nothing, pulled the comforter tight over Dawn's shoulders again and concentrated on her breathing, instead.
"She didn't, either," she went on, "She tried to love him, I think, but... she couldn't. She still loves you. But... well... he left, and Spike started following her around..."
The young woman must have noticed his dark look.
"It's okay, though," Dawn backpedaled, "I mean, it was creepy and everything, but all he did at first was lurk around, you know... brought her candy and stuff... She'd never like him anyway, because... well, the whole evil thing. And then the Dru thing happened, and that was pretty much the end of that."
Part of Angel desperately wished she would stop talking... yes, these were the very things he had been lamenting missing in Buffy's life, but... So far, he hadn't heard a single one that lessened his concern for her.
"Drusilla was *here*? In Sunnydale?" It was a miracle any of them were left alive at all, considering his Childe's state of mind when he last saw her...
((Screaming... on fire...))
Naturally, that line of thought brought back even less welcome memories... Darla's eyes wide in terror as Drusilla drank her... Darla at the wrong end of a sword that ran through his intestines... Darla naked beneath him, crying out his name in ecstasy as he tried to lose himself inside of her...
"Yeah. Spike kidnapped both of them and chained them up in his lair," Dawn reported, as thought she was spreading a juicy piece of gossip with one of her girlfriends, "And then he was all, 'I'll stake Dru to prove that I love you!' and Buffy was like, 'Ew... as if!' and so he threatened to kill her if she wouldn't love him, but of course, he can't because of the chip, so... Then Harmony walks in and..."
Angel was feeling suddenly very overwhelmed. And infuriated. And... really confused.
"Wait... Harmony? *Cordelia's* friend Harmony?"
"She's a vampire, now," Dawn explained, "Her and Spike used to live together."
((Good God... this is like some twisted soap opera...I wonder if Cordy knew about this.)) "Ah."
"So anyway... Harmony shot Spike with a crossbow, and they started fighting... and Drusilla got free and went after Buffy..."
"She *did*?!" ((Worse and worse. When I get my hands on that...))
"Yeah, but Spike saved her. It was a whole big thing. None of us would talk to him at all for a while, right up until..."
She trailed off, not needing to finish her sentence. Angel sat, trying to let all of the implications of what she'd been telling him sink in. What had any of them been thinking by trusting Spike in the first place? And Dru...
Yet another on his long list of crimes. Though it was too late to do anything about her now, he vowed to have a talk with her Childe. Maybe Spike had gone too long without a Master to keep him in line...
"So... he's been helping out the last few days. Buffy thinks he's watching out for me, but... he's really mostly guarding her. Because... you know... she's all... " She circled a forefinger around her ear in the universal sign for cuckoo. "Besides... he wouldn't be any good against Glory, anyway. Last time he tried, he got his butt kicked, and she almost got me."
"Dawn...slow down. Too many facts, here. Who is Glory?"
Her face sagged into a deep frown. "She's the big bad right now. I guess she's some kind of demon goddess or something."
"What does she want with you?" Angel wondered aloud.
Dawn shrugged and looked quickly away. "It's a long story. Mr. Giles could..." she yawned, "probably explain it better than me." She slipped a small hand under her pillow as her eyes drooped, then closed.
Angel waited for a moment, and when she remained silent, he rose and headed for the door. Just as he reached out for the knob, he heard Dawn whisper,
"I missed you, Angel..."
He paused, but didn't turn around.
"But not as much as Buffy does."
Closing his eyes, he struggled to contain the urge to cry. "I missed you both, too," he replied. "Good night, Dawn."
"Night."
Angel stepped out into the hallway and leaned back against the door before he finally allowed his tears to fall.
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TBC...
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