Breaking down the
Walls
TITLE:
"Breaking down the walls" Chapter 4 - 4/12 - Rated PG - B/A Angst,
series 6 predictions
AUTHOR: Charlie/Selwyn29
EMAIL: selwyn29@ntlworld.com
DISCLAIMER: They're not mine, they're Joss's. But if they were mine I give them to Duck's for safekeeping J
PAIRING: B/A, and loads more
TIMELINE: After end of series 5 Buffy, series 2 Angel
SPOILERS: Anything is possible... say all, up to B5/A2
SYNOPSIS: My take on series 6 and what should happen, please read Chapter One
or none of this will make sense.
FEEDBACK: Definitely wanted, it's my first attempt.
RATING: PG CONTENT
DEDICATION:
To Trammie, AlwaysLuv and Mark my Beta readers and Duck's who without her epics
I would never had started this one. Also to the Babble Board posters, who have been an inspiration for some
storylines. Also to a fantastic program
in the UK called Hearts and Bones who gave me the ideas for a few of the
dialogue lines.
Again she whispered into the dark room, "Angel?"
Her eyes were adjusting to being
open for the first time in a month; she desperately tried to make out the
figures in the room. She saw Xander
stand, open mouthed in the doorway, the familiar figure of Giles by the side of
the bed, a strange blond girl she didn't recognise stood next to Willow. But some slayer sense made her look at
Willow again, she was down on the floor, and underneath her, struggling madly,
was Spike. All of Buffy's slayer
instincts kicked in, she jumped up from the bed and dragged Spike away from her
friend. With all the remaining strength
she had in her, she kicked him through the open doorway, narrowly missing
Xander in the process. Commotion broke
out in the room, as Xander ran to fix the lights, Buffy ran for Spike and Spike
ran for his life.
Buffy walked into the lounge,
stumbling slightly as her legs resisted movement. She walked over to a coffee table and calmly broke it in two,
creating a stake for herself. Turning
slowly, she opened up her senses to find Spike. Noting that he was currently crawling behind the back of the
sofa, she charged across the room and over the piece of furniture. With one kick, Spike lay prone on his back
and Buffy lunged from above him, aiming for his heart, an animalistic snarl
emerging from her lips. The lights
illuminated the scene and a voice cried out.
"Buffy, no, stop!" Giles shouted.
Spike took the Slayer's momentary
disorientation to roll over, so the stake plunged harmlessly to the floor, just
by his face.
"Bloody hell Slayer, you could
have had someone's heart out with that!"
Xander had dashed over to the
unfolding drama and tightly gripped Buffy's arms in his embrace. The Slayer squirmed against his body, trying
to get free. Under other circumstances
this would have been a dream come true for the young man, but not at this
moment.
"Buffy, stop! Much as it pains me to say, Spike's a good
guy."
"Spike? Good?" Buffy said,
incredulously.
"This is the same Spike we're
talking about, the same sad, bleached blonde, Billy Idol wanna-be?"
"Hey, I resent that!" Spike said, and stormed out to find beer in
Xander's kitchen.
Xander and the rest of the gang
moved Buffy, gently, to the couch and sat her down.
"I don't understand." she said in
a lost voice.
"Buffy," Giles began gently, "do you know who we are?"
"Of course I do," she said,
confidently. "You're Giles, that's
Xander and that's Willow. Vampire boy
is in the kitchen, but I don't know who you are." she said, accusingly, to
Tara.
Tara went and sat beside Willow,
shyness overcoming her once more.
"You're all different, somehow
though. Xander, you're bigger, Will,
your hair is shorter and Giles, you seem less, well, stuffy."
"Buffy, do you remember what
happened?" Willow asked.
"Yes, I got attacked by a demon
and it cut me. Giles, you found out
that I would take on the aspect of a demon, and I did, I could hear
voices. Only a few at first, but then I
could hear more and more, I couldn't shut the voices out."
"What do you remember from just before
you woke up?" Giles asked.
"I remember being in my bedroom."
She looked around the strange apartment. "And my mom looking after me, but she was trying to stay away, so I
wouldn't read her thoughts. She was
trying to hide things." She looked up
at Giles as it came back to her.
"Oh my god, you had sex with my
mother! Eww, teenage trauma!"
"And moving on." Giles said quickly.
"Then I remember just hearing all
these voices, and then my head hurting a lot, and wanting to go to sleep. Then I woke up, here." She looked around again at the worried
faces.
"What's happened to me? To you? Is this something the Mayor did? Faith?" Buffy was beginning to
get hysterical.
"Buffy, I think you need to lie
down and rest while we try and work out some answers." Giles said. Willow got up and began to lead her friend to the bedroom. Buffy shook Willow off and turned on the
group.
"I don't want to rest!" she
shouted, "I want to know what's going on!"
The faces looked back at her, fear
and confusion showing through.
"Where's Angel?" She asked again, in a quiet voice.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Angel was driving along the
freeway from Los Angeles. It was night
and the roads were almost empty. He'd
taken the opportunity to pull the top down on the car. It was senseless he knew, but sometimes, he
thought that, maybe, the wind could blow all these thoughts out of his head and
just leave empty space, nothing to think about, nothing to hurt over.
His emotions were running like
wildfire, he hadn't really thought about his actions since he left Fred at the
restaurant, he just knew he had a desperate longing inside him to go to
Sunnydale and to say goodbye properly, although he knew deep down he would
never truly let her go.
His mind was filled with thoughts
of her as he drove. The first time he'd seen her face, their first meeting in
the alley, the first kiss, that night when the Master had killed her and he had
to watch Xander bring her back when he couldn't. The night he'd taken her ice-skating and she accepted him for who
he really was, then that first night at his apartment. He pushed a cassette into the tape player
and music spilled out into the silent night air.
I'm lying alone with my head on
the phone
Thinking of you till it hurts
I know you hurt too, but what else can we do
Tormented and torn apart
I wish I could carry your smile in my heart
For times when my life feels so low
It would make me believe what tomorrow could bring
When today doesn't really know, doesn't really know
I'm all out of love, I'm so lost without you
I know you were right believing for so long
I'm all out of love, what am I without you
I can't be too late to say that I was so wrong
He felt tears welling and a
longing in his soul, as he remembered that night, the way she'd looked into his
eyes when she'd asked him to kiss her, the gentle way they had made love that
night. His heart broke all over again
when he remembered how Angelus had treated her after that, and that moment when
he'd returned, and she'd found the strength to kill him. And when he came back from hell, how she'd
looked after him, and how they couldn't stay away from one another. And then he'd walked away, the hardest
choice he had ever made. He allowed his
mind to stray fitfully over that one beautiful day at Thanksgiving two years
ago when he had been human, briefly. He
knew he'd never have a day like that again, that was his one perfect
moment. And then he recalled the fights
they'd had, over Faith, and then over Riley. And finally his mind passed over the night of Joyce's funeral, when he'd
made a journey much like this, but to be by her side. When he'd taken her in his arms once more and the chaos that was
his life at that moment had settled again. That was the night he'd decided to go back.
I want you to come back and
carry me home
Away from these long lonely nights
I'm reaching for you, are you feeling it too
Does the feeling seem oh so right
And what would you say if I called on you now
And said that I can't hold on
There's no easy way, it gets harder each day
Please love me or I'll be gone, I'll be gone
I'm all out of love, I'm so lost without you
I know you were right believing for so long
I'm all out of love, what am I without you
I can't be too late to say that I was so wrong
But he had been too late. There had only ever been one person whose
presence could make sense of his future, and now she was gone. What future did he have left?
He tore the tape out of the player
and threw it out onto the freeway. It
hit the dusty road and shattered, spilling black reams out across the
road.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Buffy sat in the lounge, silence surrounding
her. Everywhere she looked there was a
friendly face, but there was a stranger within their bodies. Giles walked across and sat next to her on
the settee.
"Angel," Giles took a deep sigh,
"Angel, went away a while ago, he was needed elsewhere."
"Buffy, we aren't fighting the
Mayor, or Faith anymore. We, actually
you, defeated them a long time ago."
Buffy just looked at him,
disbelief in her eyes.
"Angel," she whispered again.
"Two years have passed since we
fought the Mayor on Graduation Day, and since then we've faced and killed many
more enemies. None were more powerful
than your final defeat; Glory."
"I know, this is an alternative
reality isn't it? Like when Willow's
doppelganger got sucked into our world. It is, isn't it?"
"I'm sorry, Buffy, I don't know
what to say to convince you that this is reality." Giles said, sadly.
Buffy sat silent once more. She didn't want to believe anything that he
was telling her, but this was Giles, why would he lie to her? She concentrated as hard as she could and
listened to herself breathe, trying to calm down. Suddenly she looked up into the room and, in a little voice,
asked.
"Why isn't my heart beating? What's happened to me?"
"In the final fight with Glory,
you defeated her, but she had opened a gate to hell, using Dawn's blood. You sacrificed yourself to save Dawn. You jumped from a tower, into the gate to
close it, and you didn't survive the fall."
"So why am I here? Now?"
"We brought you back." Willow answered.
"Why?" Buffy asked, tears pricking at her eyes.
"Because you shouldn't have
died! It wasn't your time." Xander said, forcefully.
"You sacrificed everything to save
Dawn, you didn't deserve to die." Willow completed.
Buffy looked straight at Willow.
"Who's Dawn?"
"You know Dawn, little sis,
Dawnie, writer of the teenage angst diaries." Xander tried to jog her memory.
Buffy looked at him blankly.
"How long was I dead for? Longer than last time?"
Giles reluctantly answered her
question "Approximately four months."
She looked up at him, the shock
registering across her face,
"Four months?? I've been dead for four months?" Buffy quickly got up from the couch and
began to walk across the room.
"Did you bury me?" she shouted.
"Oh God, did you bury me in this?"
she asked, looking down at the prom dress she was wearing.
Buffy began to cry, confused tears
seeping down her cheeks.
"Did people cry at my funeral?"
she asked, through the tears. "My
Mom? Angel?"
Suddenly, the door to the
apartment burst open and Dawn came running in, followed quickly by Anya.
"I know something's going on, I
know you're hiding something…" Dawn started, but then looked at the crying
figure in the middle of the room.
"Buffy?" She exclaimed, and ran
into the arms of the crying Slayer.
"Oh my god, Buffy, I can't believe
it, I can't believe you're here! I
thought you'd gone. I've missed you so
much. When Mom died, I needed you so much
and then you went too!" Dawn babbled
on, tears streaming down her face. Buffy stood there, not moving, not registering anything.
"Giles has been looking after me
since Mom, well you know. But now,
you're here, we can be together again, I can live with you."
Buffy stepped back, out of the
younger girl's embrace.
"I don't know you." she said to the teenager before her, "I
don't know who you are."
"I'm Dawn! I'm your sister!" Dawn shouted, through the tears.
"I don't have a sister." Buffy said, confused and alone.
Dawn began to sob in the middle of
the room. Spike walked over from the kitchen
and led the young girl away into a quiet corner. "Come on, L'il Bit. She
just needs a bit of time to recover an all."
Buffy stood at the epicentre of
this whirlwind of emotions, piecing together the bits of information she
had. Giles walked across and touched
her arm.
"Is my Mom dead?" Buffy
asked him.
Giles was quiet for a moment, "I'm
sorry, she died of a tumour, earlier in the year."
"Please, sit down for a moment,
Buffy. I promise you I'll try and sort
this out."
She turned on him, knocking his
hand from her arm.
"Sort this
out? Sort it all out?" She began to shout, anger rising in her
voice. "How? How do we sort this out? I've died and been resurrected; only I don't remember what happened or
any of the past two years of my life. I
don't know any of you, you're lying, and this is all a trick! I would remember having a sister, and I
would remember my Mom dying! And Angel
would never leave me, he wouldn't!" Buffy opened the apartment door and ran out into the hallway and down
the stairs.
Xander, Willow and Giles jumped up
and ran out of the open doorway after her. They came out of the bottom of the apartment block and were faced with
an empty street. No sign of Buffy in
either direction.
Willow stood in the middle of the
street as the heaven opened and rain poured down from the night sky.
"What have I done?" she asked.
"You did what you thought was
right." Giles replied.
"We'll find her, Will." Xander said, looking off into the
darkness. "I promise we will."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Angel was nearing the end of the
freeway now. The quiet plains around
him were beginning to fill with scattered houses and businesses. He was practically driving on autopilot,
thoughts of Buffy whirring around his head. As he was getting closer and closer to Sunnydale his entire body was
responding. All his senses heightened
and his cells tingled. As he passed the
'Welcome to Sunnydale' sign his knuckles were white, he was gripping the
steering wheel so hard. He took a deep
breath and began the drive through the town, towards his beloved's resting
place.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Buffy ran through the town, away
from Xander's apartment. She didn't
understand anything that was happening, who anyone was, or even who she
was. She just knew that she had to find
something familiar, something to centre herself on. She turned into the street and ran along Ravello Drive, past the
same old houses that had always been there, along the road until she got to the
house she was looking for.
She ran up the path and stopped
dead. The house lay, in darkness, in
front of her, no welcoming light, and no homeliness about it at all. And then she saw the 'Sold' sign dug into
the front garden. She took a few steps
back and checked the scene again. It
was definitely her road and her house. She ran around the back and saw the tree where Angel had spent so many
nights. She saw her bedroom window, that she would sneak out of, the trellis,
that she knew every inch of, which she used to climb up and down to exit the
house, without her mother knowing, the back porch that she, Xander and Willow
used to sit on, talking through the night. Confusion flooded through her, she needed some answers. Maybe her Mom had sold up and moved on after
Buffy had died, made a fresh start, because there was no reason for her to stay
in Sunnydale after she had gone, was there? Tears blinding her, Buffy ran on, and headed for the cemetery.
She got to the familiar ground in
less than a minute and began charging through the stones, looking for the
recent ones. She wanted to prove that
this was all a lie, which those people, who looked like her friends, had been trying
to trick her. She ran along the rows,
past the graves and headstones of the many Sunnydale fallen, each unknown name
giving her hope. She was nearly at the
end of the row when she saw it, the words engraved in the stone, mocking her.
'Joyce Summers, beloved Mother of
Buffy and Dawn, '1959-2001''
Buffy sunk to the soft earth in
front of the stone, tears pouring down her face.
"No, Mommy, no. How can this madness be true? How can this be real? You can't be dead, I need you, I need you
more than ever. I can't have forgotten
you dying; I wouldn't forget something like that! These flowers that are here, did I put them here? Did I walk down here one day and lay them on
your grave? Oh god, I feel like I only
saw you an hour ago, and now you're gone forever and I didn't say goodbye, I
didn't know that I wouldn't see you again. And I don't understand who Dawn is. I would know if I had a sister, you would have told me, and now everyone
and everything is telling me I have this little sister and I don't know her, I
don't know anything." Buffy rested her
head on the mound of earth and sobbed hysterically, the nightmare of reality
overcoming her. After a few minutes she
opened her eyes, hoping and praying that it had all been a dream, but the
headstone still read the same. A new
grave, next to her mother's, caught her tear filled eyes. She stood up and walked over to it. A fresh bouquet of flowers rested on the
top. She reached down and picked the
card out.
'We miss you so much'
'Willow,
Xander, Giles, Tara, Anya and Dawn'
Before she looked up, she knew the
name that was freshly engraved.
BUFFY ANNE SUMMERS
1981-2001
BELOVED SISTER, DEVOTED FRIEND
SHE SAVED THE WORLD
A LOT
It was all too much for her to
take in. She had to get away, go somewhere
to think where she wouldn't be found. She walked along the cemetery to the end and then she saw it, the one
place where so many things had happened over the past year, but the one place
where she felt totally safe. The rain
began to pour from the heaves so she put her head down and walked purposefully
through the night.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Angel left the car at the entrance
to the cemetery. He had been to this place so many times before, but strangely
had only ever associated it with vaguely happy memories. Of patrolling at night, with Buffy, holding
hands and kissing like teenagers behind the gravestones. Young couples have places that they surround
with memories, which they return to and feel free of all the pressures of
life. Well, this was theirs, their
special place. And now it was her final
resting place. Somewhat fitting, he
felt.
He walked slowly and sedately
through the rows of stones. Each stone
belonged to someone's loved one; each stone meant something to somebody at some
time. But none could mean more than the
one he was going to see. No other
person in this place could be loved as much as Buffy was and still is, he was
sure of that.
He reached the end of the row, and
the finality of the engraved words took his useless breath away. He stood, head bowed, at the head of the
mound of earth, resting the rising temptation to bury himself in the ground
with her. How did it come to this? He wondered. How had it all ended like this? She had died, alone, without him by her side. He'd never had a chance to tell her how he really felt, how
jealous he had been when she had told him about Riley, how much he had wanted
to beg her to let him back into her life, instead of the country boy, that time
he had come to see her at college. Each
time his phone rang in LA and there had been no one on the other end, every bit
of him had wished it were her, too scared to speak. He had tried to fool everyone that he was all right, that he was
getting on with things, leading a normal life. But he never had been able to. Even spending that night with Darla had just brought memories of her
back to him, every touch and kiss he had compared to her.
He sunk to his knees on the ground,
the rain pouring across the back of his duster. He couldn't go on, carrying this weight with him for eternity, it
wasn't worth it. Without her the world
seemed like a dark void. Becoming human
meant nothing to him now, it had been her dream and she had made it his. Lives were no longer worth saving because he
hadn't saved hers when she needed him too.
As he sat there, crouched in front
of the grave, he knew what he was going to do; he knew he would stay there with
her, through the night and see the final sunrise together. Then they could be
together, forever. The ash from his
broken body could sink through the earth and find its lover. His mind made up, he lifted his eyes to the
sky for one last time. Morning light
would not be long in coming.
But as he took one final look
around the cemetery, a familiar place caught his eye. He saw the mansion, on top of the hill, where they had spent so
much time, where so many things had happened to them, where she had saved his
life shortly before he had walked out of hers.
"Just one last visit, my love, to
lay the memories to rest before I join you." he whispered to her earth. He began the climb from the cemetery, up to
the old house.
He had never sold the place. Cordelia had brought it up many times, to release
capital for the business, but he never could let go. It was one of his few remaining Sunnydale connections. He needed it. So he had carried on paying the few bills that came through and
put it to the back of his mind.
Now, here it was, looming in front
of him, just a few short steps away. He
wound his way out of the grounds of the graveyard and on to Crawford
Street. He made his way to the top of
the steps that led into the courtyard. The exact courtyard where they had fought, almost to the death, and
later kissed once more as if their life had depended on it. He placed his foot on the first stone step,
taking in the overgrown area beneath him.
He stood there for a moment before
he noticed a strange light coming from inside. He took a step closer, thinking that maybe some homeless people or kids
had moved into the place in its derelict state. Then his vampire senses alerted him to noises coming from
inside…smashing, banging, crying and yelling. He rushed down the steps; someone was trespassing into their place, into
their memories.
He ran across the courtyard and
stopped dead at the French windows that lead into the main room.
He had left his sparse furniture
and a few possessions in the mansion when he had gone, not wanting to have to
spend any more time in Sunnydale, before leaving for LA, than was
necessary. He had known that the more
time he had spent in this town, even an extra minute, the more chance there
would be that he would have upturned his decision and run back into her
arms.
Now, he took in the scene before
him. He saw his sofas and the coffee
table, where she had placed the butcher's bags she brought him, when he was
recovering from his return. He saw
pottery that he had bought, smashed over the floor. A presentation case which had housed one of his favourite statues
was decimated, shards of glass lying all around. A rug that had been in front of the hearth was lying near his
feet torn in two. And standing in the
middle of this chaos, was the one thing he could truly not believe. The one thing he had thought of constantly
for the past half year.
She stood like a true angel in the
middle of the room. Her golden hair
tangled and matted with rain, across her face and down her shoulders. She was wearing a torn and muddy gown, which
he remembered her wearing the night of the prom. Her beautiful face was creased with tears and pain. She was lost in her own misery and sorrow.
Angel couldn't move in the
doorway. He had dreamt of this every
night since he had heard the news, dreamt of seeing her again, walking across
to her and taking her in his arms, but this couldn't be real. This must be another dream, he must have
fallen asleep in the graveyard and this was his mind taking him on a
journey. Or sunrise had come and he was
dead, it was all over and this was heaven, or hell.
He watched, as she picked up a
shard of glass and held it in her hand, slashing huge welts into her arms,
causing blood to flow out and onto the stone floor beneath her. Unwittingly, mirroring an action Dawn had
taken once when she had found out that she wasn't real. He knew he had to go and stop her, stop her
damaging her beautiful form, from causing herself pain. At the moment he managed to make his feet
move from the spot at the doorway where he was standing, a shrill ringing
pierced the air. It took him a second
to realise that the sound was his mobile phone, activated in his pocket. He silently cursed Cordelia and her
efficiency, making him buy one of the damn things, so he could be contacted
anytime.
The sound snapped Buffy out of her
trance and she looked up and saw the figure in the doorway.
Before Angel could decide what to
do first, whether to throw the phone far away or to just ignore it and go to
her, she had decided for them. The phone
was left ignored as she ran across the room and threw herself into his arms,
her pain and misery forcing her to sink to the floor, her arms clasped around
his waist. Her face buried into his
stomach. Angel stood shocked for a
second, but then the familiar sensation of having her near, returned. The smell of her hair, the feel of her small
body. Within seconds he had dropped to
the floor too, scooping her delicate body onto his lap.
As he sank to the stone, his
soulmate in his arms, Angel's last thought was that this was the death he had
always wished for, nothing more than an eternity in his beloved's arms.
They sat there for a few minutes,
clinging, one to one another, and the hopes and dreams they represented. Angel practically smothering her in his
arms, he held her so close. He reached
down and lifted her face up to his. Gently he wiped a little of the mud and tears off her cheeks and looked
into her eyes.
"I'm not worthy of this heaven." he
said, and bent his head down to capture her lips in his. She responded slowly at first, gently.
Exploratory. But then desperation began
to sink in and her lips attacked his. She reached her arms up to lace them around his neck.
Angel began to notice a warm wet
feeling across his face. The
unmistakable smell of blood pierced his senses and it took all his willpower to
stop his face from changing into its mask. He looked across and saw the deep wounds on Buffy's arms.
"Your arms! We need to do something."
He scooped Buffy up into his arms
and carried her across the room to the sofa. He rested her down at one end and raced into the other room looking for
some cloth. He found some old material
that had been hanging as a decoration on the wall and tore it down. He brought it back to where Buffy was
sitting and began tearing it up into strips.
She watched him, her eyes not
registering what was going on. They
kept flickering back to her blood stained arms.
"See, blood, I am real, I am
Buffy…." she kept whispering to herself.
Angel picked up one of the
makeshift bandages and began to wrap her arms in it to stop the bleeding.
"I knew they were lying, I knew
they weren't my friends. I knew you
wouldn't leave me." At this point she
looked up into Angel's face.
He reached across and gently took
hold of her bandaged arms.
"Buffy." he said gently, still not
truly believing the sight before him.
"What's happening? Why are you here? Why did you do this to yourself?"
Buffy began to silently cry again.
"I don't know what's happening."
she finally whispered.
"I just remember falling asleep
finally, with all those voices in my head, and you were going to go and find a
cure. Then I woke up, in a strange bed,
and everyone was there, but you, but they were all different. And Spike was there."
Angel's face contorted into one of
hatred and pain at the mention of the younger vampire's name.
"And I went to attack him and they
all stopped me, then they told me that I had died and they had resurrected me,
and then this young girl came in and everyone said she was my sister, but I
don't have a sister. I know I don't,
and then they said my Mom was dead, and that you had left me, so I ran
out. I went to the cemetery to see if I
could prove them wrong, but then I saw my Mom's grave and then mine and…I came
up here." Buffy was beginning to get
more and more hysterical.
"And I wanted to prove I was real,
I wanted to see the blood flowing. But
it just flowed, there wasn't any real pain and I can't hear my heart. And I don't understand, I don't understand
anything." With that last statement,
she burst into heavy tears once more. Angel reached over and bundled her in his arms, holding her as close to
him as possible. She had returned, this
wasn't heaven, hell or some dreamland. This was reality and she was back, it was almost too much for him to
take in. But she needed him, he needed
to find out exactly what had happened to her, what had gone wrong when they
resurrected her.
"Hush, love. We'll make sense of all of this, I promise
we will."
"Angel, you wouldn't lie to me
would you?"
"No I wouldn't."
"Is my Mom really dead?"
"Yes, she is, she died about a
year ago."
"Was I there with her, when she
died?"
"No, you were the first to find
her though."
"Do I really have a sister?"
"Yes, you do. Her name is Dawn and she's a lot like you."
"Why don't I remember her?"
"I'm not sure," Angel replied,
thinking for a moment, trying to piece things together in his head.
"Buffy, how old are you?" he
asked.
"18. Why?"
Angel nodded, things were becoming
a little clearer.
"Dawn was an energy key, sent to
you to be protected last year, in the form of a sister. The monks who made her, implanted memories
into everyone, so that one day you woke up and just accepted her in your life."
"So why don't I remember?"
"I know this is very confusing for
you, but I think what has happened is that when you were resurrected, they
brought you back younger than you were when you died, two years younger in
fact, before Dawn had ever been sent to you, so the memories were not there."
"I've lost two years?"
They both sat in silence for a
moment.
"Angel, did you really leave me?"
Angel looked at his mate in his
arms. He knew he'd never felt this
complete since that Thanksgiving two years ago.
"I'm here now, and we're going to
try and sort this all out."
He kissed her gently and she moved
her body down and rested her head on his shoulder. He lay there, stroking her hair until she fell into a deep sleep.
It was early morning outside when
he got up off the sofa, as quietly as he could, trying not to disturb her. He picked his duster up off the floor, where
it had been left last night and pulled his cell phone out of the pocket. He walked into the other room; just standing
in the doorway so he could see her if she woke up.
He dialled a familiar number and
listened to the rings.
"Giles? I think I might have found something that you are looking for."
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