The Ruby Slippers

Part 7



By Gem

& PJ



"No, Xander, absolutely not. I work solo." Buffy tossed another stake over her shoulder, not bothering to verify that it landed in the weapons bag. She hadn't missed one yet.

"Umm, Buffy, really appreciate the technique, but could you please yell 'four' or maybe 'incoming' before you throw another one of those things?" Xander abandoned the spot on the floor where he had flung himself to avoid the stake and resumed his seat on the bed.

"Not to be rude, but no one actually asked you to join me while I got ready for work."

"No, I came out of the goodness of my heart, and a sincere desire to get away from Anya for an evening. She's looking at bridal magazines again and starting to hum old Carpenter's songs. I think she's hinting at something."

Buffy stopped her preparations long enough to give Xander a long look. "Be grateful for what you have, Xander. Not everyone gets so lucky. Now, I'm going out hunting," she held up her hand to keep him from interrupting her, "alone, and you should go home to your girlfriend, who would, for some strange reason, like to be more than your girlfriend."

"I'm just worried about you, Buff." He shrugged and smiled apologetically at her. "We all are. I know it's only been three months, but..."

"I'm fine," she quickly interrupted him. She grabbed her bag and slung it over her shoulder. "Now get out of here. I have to study for finals after patrol, so I need to get moving."

"At least promise me you'll think about coming out with all of us Friday night," he begged as she shooed him out of her bedroom and towards the stairs.

"I'll think about it," she said grudgingly. "But only if you promise to stop trying to follow me on patrol. There are some things a girl has to do for herself."

* * * * *

"Where are you?" she muttered under her breath as she twisted out of the grasp of an overly enthusiastic vampire. She spun around, preparing to scissor kick him into a nearby tree branch when her foot slipped on the damp grass. Another vamp barreled into her before she had a chance to regain her footing and forced her to the ground.

She lay on the ashes of several other previously dispatched vampires, pinned beneath the dead weight of the second-to-last survivor. She could see the smile creep across his gnarled face as she struggled to get the leverage to shove him off. The silvery glow of the spring moonlight gleamed on his fangs as he lowered his head to strike.

And then she felt it. The shiver in her soul, that certain prickling under her skin that told her he was somewhere near.

He came. He couldn't stay away any more than she could, and so he came to her once again to give her strength to continue the fight. And as always, she reveled in their combined energy.

She threw off the vampire who was pinning her and rolled in the opposite direction immediately, reaching out instinctively to grasp her stake as she passed it. She was on her feet an instant later, striking rapid deadly blows at anything within arms' reach. A few minutes later she stood alone in the cemetery, surrounded by small piles of ashes.

Alone. He had disappeared again, without so much as a whisper in her ear or a blade of grass disturbed to show that he had ever been there.

"You could have at least wished me luck on my finals!" she yelled defiantly at the empty air.

* * * * *

Joyce twisted her hands nervously as she paced, praying she was doing the right thing. She had known for months that there was a problem, but everyone kept counseling patience. She had been patient, in her estimation very patient, all winter and spring. Having reached the depths of summer with no appreciable improvement in the situation, she felt it was now time for action.

"Rupert, I'm very worried about Buffy. I know you all keep telling me to give her time, but I think it's been long enough." She stopped her anxious trek across Giles' braided throw rug and sat down beside him on the sofa. "She should be getting on with her life by now, but all she seems to care about is getting on with her slaying."

Giles sighed. This wasn't the first time Joyce had come to him with this concern, and each time it became more difficult to calm her down. He could hardly blame her; it had been hard enough for him to watch Buffy the past six months. If he had been her real parent, instead of a come-lately surrogate, he could imagine the fear would be overwhelming.

Still, he had to try and be the voice of reason for Joyce. Given Buffy's fragile emotional state, her mother's concerns could only exacerbate the tension between them.

"Joyce," he began slowly, "I realize this is a difficult time for you. It must be very hard to sit by and not be able to make things better, the way you would have done when Buffy was a child. Still, she is not a child and she is not dealing with a skinned knee or a bad report card. She lost the man she loved, and whatever we may have thought of him, he was the most important person in her world. She's not going to snap right back."

"It's been six months, Rupert; that's half a year. I made allowances at first for the distance and the moodiness; I thought it was natural but eventually it would pass." Joyce leaned forward in her chair. "But it just goes on and on. She's finally started to go out with her friends again, but it's almost as though she feels she has to. And Rupert, she's taking courses this summer. My Buffy, whose favorite semester in school used to be summer vacation, is willingly sitting in a classroom in August. I've seen her grades and I know she's doing very well, but she never talks about it. She doesn't talk about anything unless I force the issue."

"You haven't been encouraging her to date again, have you?" he asked warily. It had taken him weeks to soothe the hurt feelings in the Summers household following Joyce's last attempt at matchmaking, and it had cost him precious time with the visiting Olivia.

"Well I've suggested it, but she just stares at me and then she changes the subject. I only want her to be happy, Rupert. She's my daughter and I want her to enjoy her life."

"Give her time, Joyce. You must be patient," Giles begged. He ran his hands through his hair, struggling for the right words to calm Joyce down without giving her false hope. "This is not a quick or simple process. As a Slayer she faces death every day, but that doesn't mean she accepts it for anyone else but herself. Eventually she will deal with this all...but I'm not sure she will ever be the same girl again, and I don't think you should expect her to be."

Joyce looked away for a moment, trying to compose her thoughts. He still wasn't seeing the root of the problem, and she wasn't sure she could find the words to break it down for him.

"Joyce, is there something else?" She was being far too quiet for Giles' peace of mind; these sessions were usually a noisy, drawn-out affair. Not that he minded the quick cessation of dramatics, but he found it suspicious.

She sighed heavily. Maybe he would be able to make sense of things; heaven knows she wasn't able to do it.

"It's the slaying," she said with difficulty. "She...looks forward to it. Too much so, I think. She can't wait to go out, and when she comes back she's covered in bruises and cuts but she's...glowing. And yet she's also terribly sad. It reminds me..." Joyce paused for an instant before plunging ahead, "it reminds me of when she was dating...him."

Even after all this time, Joyce still only spoke Angel's name under duress.

"I really think that..." Even as he was protesting the analogy, a terrible thought was blooming in Giles' mind. He had to find Buffy, and soon. Perhaps it was all just a misunderstanding, but he would not rest easy until he had reassured himself.

"Joyce, do you have any idea where Buffy was headed tonight?"

Her forehead wrinkled as Joyce racked her brain for any information. After the first few months of unexplained hostility, Buffy had slowly begun to share pieces of her life with her mother again. Details, however, had been on a need-to-know basis.

"I think...I think she said something about an Arles demon. Yes, she definitely said she needed a flame-thrower to fight an Arles demon. Does that tell you anything?"

Giles winced at the hopeful tone in Joyce's voice; he desperately hoped her confidence wasn't misplaced. If he was right in his suspicions, he had been rather seriously underestimating the depth of the problem.

"It's a start," he hedged. "There are only so many places where she would be likely to find an Arles demon where a flame-thrower could be used safely." Assuming, of course, she was still thinking rationally enough to consider safety.

Joyce squeezed his hand tightly. "Please help her Rupert. You might be the only who can get through to her. Sometimes I think you're the only one she listens to at all."

At least the only one who can be seen, Giles thought grimly as he smiled absently at Joyce.

* * * * *

The Arles demon had not been alone; that was the first surprise.

The second surprise was his ferocity, which her research had not prepared her for. According to Giles' books, the Arles were a bloodthirsty crew, but somewhat lazy when it came to procuring the blood. They preferred to hurl their victims off of tall buildings or cliffs and let the laws of physics do the necessary rending asunder, rather than have to do all the tedious ripping limb-from-limb stuff themselves.

This Arles, however, must have been listening to motivational tapes in his spare time. He seemed to prefer the more hands-on approach to fighting, only using the rocky sea wall as a tenderizer.

Fortunately the vampires who accompanied the Arles were not so physically inclined. Once they realized Buffy was the Slayer, they were suitably cowed, and quickly dispatched. That left Buffy with only the Arles to fight, but he was enough.

She was beginning to think this would be the one; the battle she did not walk away from. Every night she wondered, and every night she put it off for just one more tomorrow. Tonight it seemed she might be out of tomorrows.

As she bounced off the cliff wall and landed on the sand, she could feel her head start to swim from the repeated blows. Suddenly there were two Arles standing over her, reaching out their enormous scaly arms to drag her to her feet and separate her from some limbs she was very attached to. Buffy closed her eyes and tried to focus her energy for one final assault.

This time, she was on her own.

The shiver came over her unexpectedly, followed instantly by the Arles demon hurtling backward. As soon as she was free, she heard a voice growling softly from the air above her.

"Not yet, dammit!"

Buffy caught her breath and opened her eyes, expecting to see him standing before her, but there was only darkness. She reached out for her weapons bag, hoping to find her flashlight, but instead her groping fingers collided with the flame-thrower she had lost track of after her first encounter with cliff wall. Its return was not a moment too soon. The Arles was up again and headed towards her, until she flipped on the flame- thrower and vaporized him.

There was a quick familiar flapping sound that broke the still night air, and then she could feel she was alone. Alone, that is, except for Giles, who was hurrying across the beach towards her.

He found her huddled on the sand, torn between hysterical laughter and sobs.

Buffy looked up at him, her eyes bright with tears. "They let him keep his coat," she gasped, almost choking on the nervous giggle that bubbled up in her throat.

* * * * *

Giles was silent on the drive back to Revello Drive. It wasn't until he stopped the car in front of Buffy's house that he spoke to his former charge.

"You had no right to behave the way you did tonight. You risked your life, and the lives of any of those the demon might have pursued had your carelessness allowed him to escape." He tried to keep the fear from his voice, but he couldn't entirely control the trembling. It had been a very close call indeed.

"I got the job done," she answered flatly. What more did he expect of her?

"And what job was that, pray tell? Slaying or ghost busting?"

She looked away. "I don't know what you mean."

"You're trying to raise Angel's spirit by deliberately placing yourself in danger," he accused. "I can't believe it took me so long to figure it out; I can only guess that it was because it's so incredible that it didn't occur to me before tonight."

"I was doing my job," she insisted yet again. After a moment a grudging honesty forced her to admit more. "It's not my fault if Angel happens to show up there to watch."

"So you really raise him with this behavior?"

"Do you think he can watch me in danger and not at least be with me? I know it's crazy...but it's the only way I have to call him."

Buffy hated the desperation she could hear in her voice. She knew she sounded pathetic and clingy, but she couldn't make herself stop what she was doing. She knew he was out there, and that he missed her as badly as she missed him. They both needed this contact; she was sure of it.

"It's not fair, Buffy, to him or you. You need to let go, hard as that may be, so that you can really live the life he left to give you. And he deserves some peace, I would think. Surely you don't believe your nightly distress calls are making for a happy afterlife."

She had known he wouldn't understand. He had loved Jenny; she knew that he had. But Jenny had never become a part of his soul; she hadn't crawled so deep into his heart that removing her was tantamount to removing the organ itself.

Buffy opened up the car door and started to slide out. As her feet touched the pavement, she turned around in her seat. "I don't think I really believe in happy at all, Giles, in life or afterlife."

* * * * *

Buffy walked slowly up the stairs to her room, not bothering to be quiet. Dawn was at a sleep-over, and her mother had told her repeatedly that she preferred Buffy to make noise when she came in, so Joyce would know she made it home alive.

The weary slayer pushed open her bedroom door, not bothering to turn on the light, and tossed her weapons bag on the floor in front of the dresser. Time to crawl into bed for a good four hours of tossing and turning, in preparation for the new day ahead.

"What the hell did you think you were doing out there?"

All the air fled from her lungs as her hands scrabbled at the wall in search of the switch. When the room flooded with light, she could see it was indeed Angel standing before her, large as life, predictably clad in his trademark coat, and looking...incredibly angry.

She could feel a strange pinging sensation in the back of her brain as a grey cloud filtered across her eyes. Her knees started to give way and she stumbled backward, reaching out for the wall to support her.

Instead, she could feel his arms around her, holding her close as he gently lowered her to the ground. Once he had her propped up against the wall he banged the door shut and squatted next to her, anxiously looking over her battered and slightly bloodied frame, looking anywhere but her eyes.

"This can't be real," she murmured, reaching up to touch his cheek. It felt almost real, solid and yet not quite so, the way that things feel solid in a dream just before the dreamer awakens.

Her voice seemed to drag his dark eyes upward to confront her own. He nodded slowly, reaching up to clasp her hand to his cheek. "It's real, more or less. It would have been even more real if you hadn't finally vaporized that Arles demon. What were you thinking of, going against it without back-up?"

She didn't answer; she couldn't. He would know the lie she gave Giles for what it was, and the truth suddenly seemed too pathetic.

"You were daring me, weren't you?" he continued softly. "Every time you patrol, the demons get a little bigger, or you tackle just a few more at one time, all so that I'll ride in like some stupid knight on a white horse to give you the strength to save the day."

Abruptly he pulled away from her, standing up so he could walk over to the window. He forced himself to keep his back to her, even though his eyes hungered for the sight of her as much as his fingers craved the feel of her skin against his own.

"You've been doing it for months now, and I've fallen for it every time."

She scrambled to her feet, suddenly energized by her anger. "Well, hey, sorry to bother you. I had this feeling we had some unfinished business, and this seemed to be the only way I could get in touch with you. But don't worry; I won't be calling again."

"I wish...that I wish I could believe that." Angel gave up the fight and turned around to look at her. How could someone streaked in human and demon blood, trailing dried strands of seaweed and reeking of brine still be so beautiful? His mind reeled with the conundrum.

"Why are you here?" she whispered brokenly, holding to her safe distance across the room. Safe. As though there was such a thing between she and Angel.

"You have to stop doing this, Buffy. This kamikaze slaying is going to catch up with you before your time, and then everything you've been working for will be gone."

"What about everything I've been hoping for? That's already gone." She took a few steps forward, forsaking safety for the feel of him near her. "It died when you did, and I can't really seem to care about the rest."

"The rest is your life," he insisted. "Yours, and everyone else's that you love. You say you want to protect them, and then you go off and try to get yourself killed. How will you protect them then?"

"I'm holding my own," she growled. "And if someday I don't, another slayer will be called. She'll be the lucky winner of the hellmouth behind Door Number Three, and I can finally be with you all the time instead of this 'now you feel me, now you don't' thing we've been doing for the past six months."

"Don't you think I want that too? Don't you think I'm waiting for the day when we can be together forever?" He, too, stepped a few feet closer, meeting her in the middle of the room. "And don't you think it's hard on me too to just...float in like some stupid Patrick Swayze wannabe and hope that it will be enough to get you through one more fight?"

"Then why?"

"Because this is the way it has to be for now. You still have work to do, and I'm not supposed to be around you at all. But I can't..." he closed his eyes, remembering the sight of her, bleeding and scarcely conscious, in the grips of the Arles. "I can't watch without stepping in, and I can't not watch."

She touched his cheek again and he opened his eyes to look down at her.

"At least when you drop in to play Sir Galahad I can feel you with me again," she whispered. "I'm sorry I've been scaring you but...God, I've missed you. I got so used to feeling a piece of you inside me and now it's gone." She tried to control the quiver in her voice, but it broke through at the end.

"Buffy, I'm still with you. I'm always with you." He reached up to cup her hand to his cheek. "In those last moments I was dreaming I was with you, and when I felt the stake...a part of me crawled so deep inside you that night that I don't think you can even tell it's me. I'm just another part of you now." With his free hand he reached out and gently touched her breast. "And I'm always going to be in there."

"I'm so tired, Angel," she confessed sadly. "I'm tired of the fighting, and the killing and the trying to pretend it makes a difference. Evil will always be there, and so will slayers. I'm good at what I do, but I'm expendable...to everyone but you."

"That's not true," he protested. "Your friends and your family love you. They need you. There will always be slayers, but the world will only get one Buffy Summers, and I'm not going to let you deprive the world of her too soon."

She wanted to weep with frustration. Why did his needs, and hers, always count as second best?

"I won't deny my friends love me; they're great and I love them too. But they all have someone in their lives now who is the most important person to them, and they have each other. As for my family," she sighed, "Well, first we have my little sister, who isn't really my sister at all but actually is a great big ball of energy shrunk down to a 32AA in need of braces. I suppose if we have to we can count my absentee dad, and, of course, my mom; a proud drop-out of Meddler's Anonymous." Buffy paused for a moment, unsure of how to continue. "I know what she said to you Angel; why you left Sunnydale. She was totally wrong, and she had no right even if she had been right, which she wasn't."

"Buffy, it's okay." He turned his head against the palm resting on his cheek, nuzzling it slightly. "There weren't any burning torches or angry villagers involved, and she didn't say anything I wasn't already thinking."

"I've been so angry with her, but I couldn't tell her why because that would just be one more reason for her not to like you, because you told me."

"You should tell her. Being angry just wastes time."

"Is that why I shouldn't be angry with you?" Her hand quickly dropped from his cheek to her side, curling into a fist on its way down. "For not telling me about the day you made not happen? Our day, that you let them take away so I could live long enough to fight some damn apocalypse, like I was just dying to do that again."

"I did what I thought was right. And if I had it to do again...I probably would do the same thing." He gave no further excuse; there was none he could offer.

"Even knowing how little time was left?" She trembled with the effort it took not to reach out and shake him. "If you knew you were going to be dead in a year anyway, a year we could have spent together, would you still have taken it all back?"

He nodded sadly, reaching out to trace a single lock of blonde hair that drifted across her cheek. "What if I hadn't, Buffy? It might have been you that was taken first. Knowing that I was going to die in a year anyway wouldn't have been as bad as watching you die and knowing I could have prevented it."

"It just makes me so mad!" She slapped the palm of her hand on his chest, and then left it there, fingers curling around a button on his shirt. "You make this big sewer speech about all the things you want to give me, but can't, and then when you can you won't because you still feel like it's not enough."

Buffy wanted to stay angry with him, but time was slipping away. She had been gifted with these few precious moments, and she was wasting them tearing at him. There were so many other things to be said; things that wouldn't bring any more pain to those dark eyes she so loved.

No more regrets about words unspoken, she promised herself. Leaning forward, Buffy rubbed her cheek against the hard familiar planes of his chest as she whispered, "Why wouldn't you ever believe me when I said you were enough, just you?"

He lowered his head to rest on hers, cheek pressed to her slightly salty hair. "Sweetheart, I'm sorry. I never wanted you to have to live with any of this. I just wanted you to be safe and happy."

"Were you? Happy, I mean, that last year?" she asked softly, turning her head so that she could prop her chin on his chest. "Cordelia said you were, before Darla came back."

"No." He raised his head from its resting place, smiling faintly at the disappointment on her upturned face. "I was happier. Happier than I thought I would be if I was separated from you. Happier than I felt I deserved sometimes. Happier than I would have been if I was alone and cut off from humanity. Didn't being with your friends or with Riley make you happier than being by yourself, at least some of the time?"

"Sometimes," she admitted grudgingly.

"It's a relative term; like holding two candles up to the night sky and deciding which one gives just a little more light." He reached down and slid his arms around her waist, holding her tightly against him. "But 'happy' is an absolute, and the only time I've known that in all my days...has been the time I spent with you."

She sighed, resting her head on his chest once more. Still no heartbeat, but perhaps even in heaven some things were a little on the impossible side. He was, after all, more dead than ever.

"So fine; you came, you scolded, you made with the sweet nothings. Where do we go from here?" She trembled inside, knowing what the answer must be.

"I go back, and you stay here. You fight...and I don't show up on my horse to sweep you away." He slipped his hand under her chin and tilted her head back so that she faced him. "I mean it, Buffy. I can't do it any more. Even if I thought I could stand it, I'm not allowed. It seems I created quite a stir earlier when I actually took form to get the Arles off of you. If it hadn't been so important for me to talk you out of this craziness, there is no way I could be here now. But it ends here, tonight. Now."

"No! I feel like I just got you back and now you're going to vanish like some freaking...ghost?"

"Still answering to 'undead American,' thank you." When his teasing didn't provoke a reminiscent smile, he became serious again. "It could be a long time, Buffy; I honestly don't know. And in the meantime you need to make your own life. But I promise I will come back for you someday, and the next time you see me will be for keeps."

"Please don't do this. At least not yet," she begged. "We still have so much to talk about, and I have so much to yell at you for." She let out a little sound that was half laugh and half sob. "I've got pages and pages of ammunition in those journals and you've hardly let me have two seconds to call you on any of it."

"Later," he promised, silvery tears flickering on the edges of his dark lashes. He bent down and kissed her, concentrating fiercely on holding his corporeal form for just a few moments more. He needed to hold her once more, to feel enveloped in her warmth and her love. He needed her to know that his love was just as strong, and just as eternal.

At length she pulled away, cursing as always her need to breathe. She reached up and ran a finger along his jaw, marveling that even blindfolded, in a room with a thousand other men she would know the shape of it at a moment's touch.

"If I really, really have to let you go..."

Angel nodded. "You really, really do."

"Then I need to know something, before you leave." She looked solemnly into his eyes, knowing she would spot a lie or evasion in their dark depths instantaneously. "Everyone keeps telling me I have to let you 'rest in peace.' I know you never had much when you were here, and a lot of that was my fault. So I need to know." She smiled wistfully at him. "Are you at peace, or am I really screwing it up for you with all these late night calls?"

He wanted to reassure her, but he could not lie. The truth would not be so unbearable, now that she knew it would not always be the truth.

"I wouldn't exactly call it peace," he admitted. "The guilt isn't really gone, but it doesn't eat at me the way it used to. I guess you could say I've found some perspective after all this time. The only thing that really haunts me now...is you."

"Then I guess you're at peace-er," she offered with a faint smile.

He traced her lips with his finger, memorizing their curves and texture, as though he could ever forget. Why did he seem destined to spend so much of his time saying goodbye to this woman, and why did it never get any easier?

"Something like that," he agreed.

She drew a deep breath. "Then for now...I can let you go." She forced herself to step back, out of the shelter of his arms, out of reach of all that she held dear in the world. "I love you."

"I love you too. Always."

She kept her gaze fixed on him until the last, needing to hold close every moment of their time together. When at last he had vanished, and not even a shimmer disturbed the air, she closed her eyes and sank down on the floor, drawing her body into a tight protective ball.

She didn't know where she would go from here, or how she would face the future alone. For so long she had counted on a kindly twist of Fate, or perhaps a simple balancing of the scales of Justice to reunite them. Now that hope was ash just as surely as her lover was.

Lacking any other alternative, she could let go of the dream. Her heart, however, would never completely surrender the man. It was, after all, now his heart too.

* * * * *

To Be Continued