Co-Written with Scribes1015!
Her nerves were shot, one minute she would find herself sobbing uncontrollably, completely convinced that he was dead in a ditch somewhere. The next she would be fuming with anger, how dare he just run off like this. It would be one thing if he went for a drive, or took a trip to the store to blow off some steam, but it had been hours. It wasn't until the clock began to approach midnight that she started to think he might really not be coming back.
"Buffy why don't you try to eat something," Cordy suggested again, as she tried to dial Angel one more time.
She just shook her head, the mere thought of food made her stomach roll. There was no way she would be able to keep anything down right now, it was hard enough to force the small sips of water she'd been drinking.
Curled up on the corner of the couch, she didn't want to go to their bed without him, she didn't want to talk, she just wanted him home. Their argument playing on a steady loop inside her mind, she kept dissecting every little detail. Sure, it had been their first fight since they got back together, but in the grand scheme of things it wasn't even that bad. They were both just so stressed, she'd been worried he was going to get hurt. She hadn't meant the words she'd yelled at him, she hadn't even meant to yell at him.
She'd just assumed he would be here, downstairs when she got out of the bath, she thought they would laugh and apologize, maybe figure out what they wanted for dinner. She had no idea he would just take off for the night, what if something happened. It's not like he was answering his phone to anyone. She was pregnant for crying out loud, god forbid something happened and she had to be rushed to the hospital, he wouldn't even know… and there that anger was bubbling it's way back to the surface.
"Look, it's late," she huffed standing up. "He's obviously found somewhere or someone to stay with. Y'all should go, get some sleep, I'll be fine here." She knew Darla was still a threat but at this very moment she didn't give a damn, she just wanted to be alone in her own home. She needed time to process everything, and she couldn't do that with Cordelia and Xanders constant reassurance that everything would be fine. Everything was far from fucking fine.. fine flew out the fucking window sometime Friday.
"I don't know Buff, I promised Angel I wouldn't leave you alone."
She rolled her eyes, if the asshole was so worried about her being alone, then he shouldn't have disappeared. Hell maybe the last few months were all a big fucking game to him, maybe he never stopped seeing Darla. It would explain a lot honestly, why the bitch was still so obsessed with him for one thing. He could be with her right now, and she wouldn't be the wiser, no one would.
Attempting to push those dark thoughts from her mind, she tried to remind herself that he would never do that… but this whole running out thing was throwing her. Reminding her far too much of the last time he had walked out of this house and out her life. "I'm going to call a few of the local hospitals again, and the police station. Just to make sure that he hasn't been in a wreck or picked up for something. But really, you two should go. I'll be okay for the night, besides you got all the cameras working so I doubt Darla would try anything here. Unfortunately she's not that stupid."
"Well you're not going to hear any objections from me," Cordy said jumping up from her seat.
Xander wasn't sure what to do, he'd promised Angel, but then again Buffy was right, he'd gotten all the cameras up and running. Also he really didn't want to be here when Angel returned, something told him it was going to go one of two ways. Either they were going to rip each other to shreds, or there was going to be a lot of makeup sex involved, neither of which he really wanted to be witness too.
"Buffy, are you sure?"
Nodding her head, she once again picked up her shattered phone. The screen was completely black, but the back light came on, that was something. Hopefully she could take it to one of those tech stores tomorrow, if they couldn't repair the screen, she hoped they could at least figure out a way to transfer the data.
Cordelia gripped Xanders arm, her nails digging slightly into the skin of his bicep. "She said she's fine honey, now let's go," she gritted out, not wanting to be stuck here any longer. It wasn't that she didn't want to help Buffy, she just happened to prefer her own bed to someone else's lumpy couch. Of course there was always the guest room, but that was entirely too much clutter for her to relax around. Besides, when she peeked inside it earlier she was pretty sure she'd spotted blood on the sheets… shuddering she didn't even want to know.
OoOoO
Lindsey blinked his eyes open, he'd crashed as soon as he got home from the airport. Noticing the red blinking light on his phone, he picked it up to see the 14 missed calls from Angel, along with a voicemail. His heart dropped into the pit of his stomach, he'd seen the first couple of calls come through this morning, but he had blown them off. Telling himself that he would call him later, after he'd made the asshole sweat for a while, though now he was worried something more serious had happened. Dialing his voicemail, he held his breath as he started to listen to the ladies' voice explain he had unheard messages and then pushed the right button for them to begin playing. He knew from the moment Angel's voice came on through the other side that something was very wrong and had some shitty flashbacks of his own run through his mind. He knew that tone too well and not once in the many years they'd know one another had it meant anything good.
After it ended, he tried to call Angel back but found no answer and Buffy's went straight to voicemail. Lindsey tried both of their numbers several times before starting to contact their friends back in Sunnydale, he knew it was late but thankfully a very groggy sounding Willow answered. She'd been his second call and she was half asleep through their short conversation and all he'd gathered really was the two lovebirds were having some huge fight and Angel had taken off hours and hours ago.
He said his apology to her for waking her up before letting her get back to sleep and jumped on his laptop and dialed another number to see if he could call in a favor to track the asshole down. Hopefully he'd used a credit card or something lately.
OoOoO
Loud pounding on the door had him bolting upright, and then it took all his willpower not to spill his guts everywhere once he did. He closed his eyes and willed everything he was feeling right now away for another moment before he went toward the door, the pounding having come and gone two more times. He swallowed hard, his eyes squinting as he looked out into the hallway as the young man who's checked him in earlier stood on the other side to tell him he needed to answer his phone.
"What?" he asked, trying to process words.
"There's a man who's been calling and very insistent that we get you to answer your phone." One good look at the kid and he could guess who was behind this. It didn't surprise him one bit about Lindsey being able to find him. He nodded and shut the door before making his way back to the bed. He put one hand to his pounding temple and the other dug around until he found his phone again that must have slipped out into the bed at some point in the last several hours he'd been passed out.
"I'm gone for not even a day and all hell is breaking loose?" was Lindsey's way of greeting him.
"Apparently I didn't get all of my frustration out on your ugly ass face."
"Don't be jealous because I'm prettier than you. Now... what'd you do? Why are you off at some hotel instead of being at home with your pregnant ass wife?"
Angel sighed, falling back onto the bed. "I don't know. The day was fine and then it just... wasn't. I was hurting and tired and I just wanted to get the fucking security stuff put together. I couldn't concentrate on it to even fucking do it and then she kept pushing for me to call Xander. And that would make sense, I know that, but it wasn't about the cameras and all that shit."
Lindsey sighed as well. "It was about that you want to be able to protect her."
"Yeah," he breathed out. "And feeling like I am failing at that entirely. I was pissed off about Darla and not being able to do something as simple as install the damn thing because my mind wasn't there and she just kept standing right fucking there and going off... and I was worried I'd faint off the thing or it'd fall somehow or something would get knocked down on her and was-"
"Acting like an ass?" he offered.
"Little bit." He sighed again. "She called Xander and I got pissed... somehow fighting about him with her... and you... and then somehow that I was jealous," he muttered, trying to remember what all that had happened and was said. "And then she just got that look on her face like she couldn't stand anything about me and said she was done... done, done with the whole thing, done with me... she stormed off..."
"It's just a fight, Angel."
He shook his head a little. "The last time she screamed at me that she was done with me-"
"I know," Lindsey cut him off. "But things are different. They're just words and people often say them when they are upset. I highly doubt Buffy meant it in the way you're taking it."
Angel closed his eyes. "I'm sorry I started shit with you. You didn't have to leave."
Lindsey chuckled a little. "I'll live. And yeah, I did. I couldn't stand being in that hell hole any moment longer."
"I'm sorry," he repeated.
"How about you just go apologize to that beautiful wife of yours who is probably worried sick about you and we just call it even?"
"What if she is better off without me, Linds?"
"She's not."
"She wouldn't have any of this to deal with. She could move on with her life just as she did before."
"You weren't better off without her, Angel. You were a walking fucking disaster holding on by a thread."
"I'm not worrying about me, Lindsey."
"Yeah, but I am. I'm worried about both of you."
"She'd be happier, safer..."
"Darla was following her around any damn way."
"Yeah, but she was safer. Darla wasn't fucking off her rocker just with Buffy out there in the world like she apparently is with us trying to be together. And it's not like it's going to work out. She may not pull off the same shit as last time but she's going to drive a wedge between us with this so it doesn't really matter."
"Angel, you two are going to get through this. You had a fight, couples do that... You have a fucked up situation with the Darla shit and I can't tell you any different about that but you're going to figure out how to get her out of your lives. It's not worth throwing it away over. Despite all the odds you two found your way back to one another and that means somethin'. You got married, you have a damn baby on the way."
"Who's also probably better off without me."
"Don't make me jump right back on a plane and come back there just to fucking hit you again."
OoOoO
Buffy had been so relieved to see him, to know that he was alive and home... and the words she meant to say to him were so far from the ones that came flying out of her face. As soon as her mouth opened snide comments about him and Darla came pouring out on their own and she regretted them as soon as they were said.
He looked like he was going to throw up. He laid his phone down on top of one of the dressers. "In case something happens you should have a phone on you," he barely managed to get out.
"Angel-"
"I know how this argument ends, Buffy."
"You've been gone for nearly two days," she choked out, her voice heavy both from sleep and the tears that she held back.
Angel shut his eyes as his head fell forward in defeat. After he had spoken to Lindsey, he checked out of the hotel, but he still felt like he needed time to clear his head, he didn't want to return home before she had had time to cool off either. He didn't want to fight anymore, yet here they were, just like before, she really was going to win again. "I know. Xander was supposed to be here, he wasn't supposed to leave you alone."
Throwing the covers off her, she stood, crossing her arms she stared at his sunken shoulders. "Xander," she deadpanned. "Please, if it came down to an attack we both know I would be the one saving him."
"Look, Buffy-," he began to explain but was cut off by another one of her tangents.
"You left me. You left us. You wouldn't answer your phone. Anything could have happened, and no one would have been able to get ahold of you." Her voice continued to rise, she had replayed him walking through that door hundreds of times throughout the day and last night, she imagined jumping in his arms, telling him how sorry she was how much she loved him… but when the sun began to set on the second day, her anger once again began to rear its ugly head. "Not to mention, that I had no idea where you went. You just left! I spent hours calling hospitals, checking jails, I didn't even know if you were okay," she paused, her voice softening slightly, "So eventually I started to think maybe you were with her," the tears that had been threatening to spill finally began rolling down her cheeks as she collapsed back onto the bed. Clutching his pillow to her, she began to sob as her body finally gave into all of the stress over the last few days.
Angel felt like his knees were going to give out from under him, the last two days had been nothing more than a nightmare and he had no idea how to pull himself, or them, out of it. Turning towards her, his heart felt as though it was shattering inside his chest. How had they gotten to this point, slowly walking towards her he knelt beside the bed, "Buffy," he whispered gently as his hand reached out to touch her.
"Don't," she choked out between sobs.
Pulling his arm back as though it had been scalded, he sighed, getting back to his feet. Walking the few steps back over to the dresser he pulled out a clean pair of boxers, "You told me you were done with me, and you said it just like you did before… when you wanted a divorce," making his way to their bedroom door, he paused just before stepping out to the hallway. "I was in some motel off the PCH, I went to a bar. I got shitfaced, I couldn't get ahold of Lindsey, and I thought you were safe. I just wanted to give us both some time to cool down. The receipt to the motel is on the dresser, and so is a box of matches from the bar. I would never see Darla behind your back Buffy, all I want is for you to be safe."
"The only time I feel safe is when I'm with you, and you walked out of that door, just like before. Just like you're about to do again."
He was exhausted, and he knew she was too. He didn't even want to think about that level of stress the baby had been forced to endure the last few days. Briefly he wondered if they should call in to see if they could schedule a visit just to check on things. "I'm not leaving you Buffy, I'm going downstairs to the couch. I think we both need a little more time, I don't want to argue with you, you're pregnant and you look exhausted."
Gripping his pillow, she turned and chunked it blindly towards him. "Fine, just go," she huffed before laying back down to face away from him. Knowing she would really lose it, if she had to see the look on his face.
The filter between her brain and her mouth must be having a malfunction. She hadn't meant to say all of those hateful things to him, but she had just been so fucking scared. She hadn't even realised that the words she spoke to him, had been the same ones she'd said the night he'd finally given up and left her before the divorce. Her hand went down to softly rub the curve of her stomach, their baby once again seemed to be just as upset as she was, kicking and rolling around just as she had when they fought before. "Shh, I know you don't like it when we fight… me and your Daddy just have some stuff to work through, but he loves you so so so much, and we're going to get this figured out, everything will work out soon."
Surprisingly, her words seemed to calm them both down a bit. At least she no longer felt as though she was carrying around a gymnast inside of her, and her breathing was starting to return to normal. Staring at the clock on Angel's side of the bed, she watched the minutes tick by one by one. Hearing him exit the shower in the hall, she wondered if he really planned to sleep on the couch, fighting or not she hated sleeping without him next to her.
OoOoO
Angel didn't even bother turning the television on downstairs, he had bypassed the guestroom knowing the awful memories it held of him sleeping in there alone. Tossing his pillow down on one end, he grabbed a blanket out of the closet downstairs. Grabbing his boxers, he didn't dare enter their room again, instead he took a quick shower in the guest bath before returning to the couch.
Flopping down on it, he stared at the ceiling above him as he tried desperately to clear his mind. He didn't want to think about anything that happened this last weekend, and he certainly didn't want to think about his heart broken wife crying upstairs. He wanted nothing more than to go crawl into bed behind her, and make her forget every single thing about the last three days, but he didn't want to fight and he knew venturing back up there was risking it.
He wasn't sure how, but he must have drifted off at some point. The next thing he knew, he was being woken up by Buffy's warm body slipping underneath the small blanket that covered him. Neither of them said a word as he turned to his side, making room for her. Sliding next to him, she scooted as close as she possibly could to him, letting out an audible sigh when she felt him finally relax, spooning his body around her small frame.
His hand immediately trailed up her bare thigh, under the shirt she wore, and around the small bulge of belly to rest a top of where their daughter lay growing inside her.
Closing his eyes once more, Angel said a silent prayer for a better tomorrow. He prayed for forgiveness for these two, as well as one for some answers on how to fix the mess that they were in.
