Buffy:
The sound of voices wakes me and I stretch out languidly,
cursing the sun for rising on another day. I hate mornings with a passion
usually only reserved for such evil fiends that try to attack my friends. With
this thought, suddenly all my memories the past few days come rushing back to
me and my stomach seems to sink like I just swallowed a lead weight. What other
fun happenings could today possibly have in store?
I start to crawl back under the covers, determined to go
back to sleep and put off facing the world for just a little bit longer, when
the voices that woke me begin to take form. I register a man and a woman,
obviously arguing. My eyes flick open, some of the fuzz in my head clears and I
try to listen. Mom and Angel. Damn.
Jumping out of bed and heading, barefoot, in the
direction of the noise I start to be able to make out what exactly they are
saying.
"I'm very sorry, Mrs Summers." Angel is trying to placate
her. "But I can assure you that absolutely nothing happened between
Buffy and I last night. I just needed somewhere to stay and she said I could
sleep on your sofa."
"I thought we had an agreement!" Mom shouts back,
confusing me slightly. What agreement? When did she ever talk to Angel before?
I pause on the stairs to eavesdrop on their conversation.
"We did," Angel answers. "And I understand your argument
perfectly. I just came to help Buffy with some slaying business. Then I'll be
returning to LA. You have no reason to be concerned, honestly."
"I was under the impression you had followed my advice
and had left Buffy for good."
What? Her advice? What are they talking about,
anyway, and why am I suddenly getting the feeling I am very much out of the
loop on this subject?
"Buffy has moved on, you do realise," Mom continues,
lowering her voice slightly. "She has a nice young man, who can give her a
proper life. She doesn't need you ruining things for her."
"I have no intention of-"
"I want you to stay away from my daughter. You've done
nothing but hurt her."
"Mom!" I cannot stand by and listen any longer and
instead rush into the lounge to confront them. "What the Hell is going on?"
"Buffy!" I am greeted by two surprised expressions.
"Explanation please," I demand, turning on Mom. "What agreement
were you talking about and what 'advice' exactly did you give Angel?"
Mom just looks at me guiltily, unwilling to say anything,
so instead I face Angel and subject him to the same angry stare. "Well?"
He shifts uncomfortably. "I really think this is
something you should discuss with your mother."
"What's going on?" A small, eager voice comes from the
doorway and I twist round to see Dawn standing there, looking far too
interested in our argument for her own good.
"Nothing. Now get out!" I snap.
"Are you getting back together with Angel?" She asks, her
eyes wide.
"It's none of your business!"
"Dawn, just go get ready for school honey," Mom
interjects.
"It's a Saturday," she protests.
"Then go and watch some cartoons or something," I order
her. "Just go somewhere that isn't here."
"Fine," she pouts, backing out the room. "Nobody ever
tells me anything in this house."
"I think I know exactly how she feels," I turn back to
Mom. "This is something I have a right to know about, don't you think?"
"All right," Mom sighs. "I didn't want you to find out
about this, because I knew it would only just upset you. But back when you were
still together with Angel, I went to see him to…discuss your future."
"When was this?"
"Um, around about the time of your senior prom."
Suddenly events of a year and a half ago start to become
much clearer. Angel deciding to leave me out of the blue. Mom being oh so
sympathetic about it. The way he tried to avoid letting me know he was here on Thanksgiving.
"You made him break up with me, didn't you?" I ask in a low, dangerous tone.
"You went to the person I love most in the world and you persuaded him to leave
me." I gradually raise my voice, until I am shouting. "How could you? You're
supposed to be my mother; you're supposed to care about my happiness!"
"I do care," she protests. "That's why I did this. It was
the best thing for everyone concerned. See how much happier you are now with
Riley."
I just stare at her incredulously, totally unable to
believe that not only is she not apologising on bended knee for deliberately
breaking my heart, but that she also actually thinks she did me a favour.
"Forget it, Mom, just forget it," I mutter, turning around to storm out of the
lounge and running back up the stairs to my bedroom.
I lie on the bed, still in my pyjamas, staring up at the
ceiling, until I hear the sound of the front door slamming then I get up and
peer between the closed drapes out the window. Mom and Dawn climb in the car
and drive off, probably on a shopping trip to the mall or something. Dawn's
been begging to go for ages and I can only guess she used the whole 'Angel
incident' as an excuse to persuade Mom what a great idea a shopping spree is.
Once the car is out of sight, I go back to lying on the
bed, patiently waiting for the sounds of heavy footfalls on the stairs and soft
knocking on my door.
Angel:
I push open Buffy's door apprehensively, afraid that her
anger from earlier won't have faded yet. I have faced Buffy in a bad mood many
times before, but it never gets any less daunting. Maybe it's because I care
about good opinion so much that her hostile gaze or words cut into me so
deeply. But I just know I would rather dispatch a room full of fiends from Hell
than suffer Buffy's wrath.
"Hey," I say softly.
"Hey," she returns without bothering to glance over at
me. I notice how young she looks lying there still in her baggy cotton pyjamas,
her golden hair fanned out on the pillow. Young, innocent and vulnerable. And
it makes my heart ache to think of all the hardships she has already faced in
her life and how many are to come in the future.
"How are you?"
She sits up, swinging her legs around over the edge of
the bed. I can't help noticing that as she does so, the leg of her pyjamas
rides up revealing one tanned and perfectly toned calf. "Fine – considering,"
she answers with a slight smile. "You?"
"I've had worse days."
She nods, scooting herself up the bed to lean against the
headboard then drawing her knees into her chest. The leg disappears back inside
its cocoon of material and I move to sit down on the bed, occupying the
position she has just vacated.
"What are we going to do, Angel?" She asks in a small
voice, her expression utterly lost, just reinforcing how young she appears.
I desperately want to reassure her, to tell her not to
worry, that everything will be okay, but I can't lie to her so I simply drop my
gaze from hers and look away. "I don't know," I reply.
"If the world ends then it'll be my fault," she says
morosely and I turn back to stare at her with a puzzled expression.
"Of course it won't be your fault, Buffy. What makes you
think that?"
"I should have been there to stop the ritual. I shouldn't
have let Spike do that to me. I shouldn't…I shouldn't have…" she trails off.
"What?" I ask gently.
She shakes her head and I see tears pricking at her eyes.
"I shouldn't have encouraged him."
"Encouraged him? How exactly?"
She refuses to look at me, instead staring over towards
the mirror on top of her dressing table from which my reflection is
conspicuously absent. "When-when we were in the cave together he was saying all
sorts of things. Like how he could tell I wanted him and how he knew I liked
to…to…have sex with vampires." She angrily wipes tears away from her eyes.
"God, some of the things he was talking about…"
I feel sick to my stomach and even angrier at Spike. "He
was just trying to upset you, you know that Buffy?" I reach out and touch her
hand and she entwines her fingers tightly with mine, digging her nails sharply
into my palm, like she is trying to cling on for dear life.
"If you hadn't come when you did," she says through
swiftly welling tears. "Then I don't know what would have happened…"
"Shush," I try to comfort her and she crawls wordlessly
into my lap, burying her face in my chest. "We did come and you're okay. I
won't let him hurt you again."
"I'm still mad at you," she mutters, grazing her fingers
lightly over my thigh.
"What about?" I ask, totally unfazed by her subject
change – this is Buffy after all.
Her palm presses against my leg, not suggestively, but
more distractedly, like it is something she is doing absent-mindedly. It still
sends a thrill through me, though, and makes my unnecessary breath catch in my
throat. "Leaving me," she replies quietly.
"Buffy," I sigh, disentangling our limbs. I don't want to
discuss our relationship now, it won't do any good, it'll just get both of us upset.
We will be reminded of the boundaries we are crossing just by being together
now and I don't want that. I just want to sit with Buffy and talk and soak up
her mere presence.
"You shouldn't have listened to her," Buffy fixes me with
a steady, intense gaze. "You should have talked to me about it. What you did –
it wasn't fair."
"I know," I answer, raking my hand anxiously through my
hair. "And I'm sorry. But it's done now." I pause, waiting for her to say
something but she stays silent. "Your Mom only wanted the best for you. She did
it because she loves you."
"She's sick, you know." Buffy finally speaks. "She's got
cancer and she might die. She might die without every really knowing her own
daughter."
"Buffy, you know that's not true," I respond quickly,
frightened by her flat, detached tone of voice. She is never like this, she's
always wild, passionate, always laughing or crying or shouting. This blankness,
this lack of emotion, worries me, it makes it obvious how deeply affected she
is by everything that is happening at the moment.
"It is," she insists. "Because, if she really knew me, if
she really saw into my heart then she'd know that the best thing for me would
never have been to send you away."
She looks straight into my eyes, the depth of her feeling
and the truth of her words written clearly in her gaze. Her hand drifts over to
touch my knee and I'm glad I don't have to breathe because I'm not sure I would
be able to; I'm finding it hard to even think just at this moment. "But she was
right," I protest weakly. "I could never have made you happy, I could never
have given you the future you deserve. Our relationship would have destroyed
you."
She pulls her hand away abruptly and cool air rushes over
the spot she has just warmed, making my skin tingle. "I thought you didn't want
me anymore," she accuses. "You said you didn't want to be with me."
Suddenly I find myself dragged back into this ancient
argument. Do I or don't I love her? Why did I leave? How could I even bring
myself to walk away from our relationship? Sometimes I don't even know the
answer to this last question myself. I have no idea where I found the strength
from to leave Buffy and I'm not sure if I could ever do it again. Which is why
we can't have this conversation, we just can't. I want to so much, I want to
reassure her and lean over and kiss her and promise I will stay by her side for
eternity, but I can't. It's not fair on Buffy. There's so much more our there
for her other than demons and darkness. She deserves to see some of those other
things, like sunshine and laughter, marriage and children. She deserves to be
loved by someone normal, someone who can make love to her. I won't answer her.
I won't say those words because there's no way I could ever take them back a
second time.
I open my mouth to change the subject, to refuse to even
talk about this, but somehow it seems that my heart, not my brain, now controls
my mouth. "That's not what I meant," my lips move before I even realise it.
"What did you mean?"
My resolve returns slightly. "Buffy, you're with Riley
now. You have someone you love, you should be somewhere with him, not here with
me, going over old arguments. We ended – it's over."
("It's never over!")
Her expression darkens and Buffy turns away from me.
Getting up off the bed, she crosses the room towards her dresser and, sitting
on the stool in front of it, she starts to methodically brush her hair. I walk
over to stand behind her and her eyes drift up the mirror to where mine would
be if I actually had a reflection. "Do you want to hear something really funny?"
She asks, sounding more depressed than amused, her voice and her face both seeming
empty. "I don't love him. I never did love him. I lied. Don't you think that's
just hysterical?"
I feel anger and pain well up inside me even as she says
the words. How could she, how could she do that to me? The fact that she would
deliberately look me in the eye and throw her new love in my face just because
she was angry with me was bad enough. But to lie to purposely hurt me – that creates
a jagged ache deep inside of me right around where my heart used to beat. I
grip her shoulder and twist her round to look at me. "Why did you say it then?"
I hiss. "Why would you make up something like that when you knew what it would
do to me?"
"Because I wanted to love him," she yells back at me. "I
thought if I said it to you it might come true. That I might dream about Riley
every night instead of you, that I might not feel sick when he touches me because
it's the wrong hands and the wrong lips. I wanted to push you out of my heart,
because there was no room for anyone else – but it didn't work. Whatever I said
or did, I couldn't get rid of you."
"Oh, Buffy," I murmur, overwhelmed by her words and the sheer
strength of her feeling. I reach out my hand to brush my fingers down her cheek
and catch the single tear that falls there.
"I love you," she whispers. "And I hate you for never
letting me stop."
"I love you too," I reply and suddenly her lips are on
mine and my hands are in her hair. Her body presses up close to mine and there
is nothing left of the world but her. Our kiss deepens, each of us trying to
push closer to the other. Tongues mesh together and somehow we stumble back onto
the bed. My hands are up her pyjama top, dancing over her back, her breasts,
before I even realise what is happening.
"No," I mumble against her cheek. "We shouldn't, we mustn't…"
She rakes her fingernails down my back, dropping her lips
to my throat and kissing me insistently there before moving up to tease my ear
with her tongue whilst speaking huskily into it. "Stop then."
"I can't…" I moan, knowing exactly what the consequences
could be of us doing this, but just not finding the will inside me to care.
"I can't either…" She breathes in reply, her pulse
thundering in my ears.
We roll over one another, savouring lost feelings,
tastes, touches, sensations… Skin meets skin, fingers exploring, lips sampling.
Her body arches towards mine and-
The phone rings.
A/N ~ Hmm, I think I've fully established by B/A bias now,
don't you? *g* Sorry if this isn't your area of interest, the next chapter will
be more varied, I promise. Thanks again for reading.