Chapter 15: Pasts Return
The black-tinted car made it's way up Revello Drive slowly, almost cautiously. The driver gradually rolled down the window and peered into the safety of the night sky. He glanced apprehensively at a small house, guarded by a few large oak and palm trees. The light was on inside, casting a warm, familiar glow to the driver, although he had not gazed upon it for more than three years. The sight of it gave a slight twinging ache in his empty chest as he looked back to the person reclining next to him in the car. He heaved an unneeded intake of air as he glanced uneasily at the woman with the baby in her lap.
"It'll be okay Angel," she said, trying to meet his troubled eyes with her comforting ones.
He looked back up at her as twitched anxiously. "What are you talking about, I'm not nervous," he said unconvincingly.
"Which is why you're convulsively twitching that way?" Cordy pointed out. "I didn't think vampires needed to do that."
Angel sighed. "So I am nervous. So what? I did see her only a couple months ago."
"Yes and that added a much wanted boost of broodiness to your usual regime of brooding." Cordy rocked Conner in her arms softly. She moved so that one of her hands rested on one of his cold ones. "It will be okay Angel," she said, her voice softer. "And if you need backup, I'm here."
Angel smiled slightly at Cordy's encouragement. He gazed at her, a little amazed at how she evolved from such a vapid, shallow cheerleader to a compassionate, caring woman who held his son so tenderly. The gaze lasted a little longer than it had to, and unconsciously, Cordy hadn't removed her hand while Angel hadn't stopped her from doing so. She was glad that he looked slightly more comfortable, she thought, he was going to need all the comfort he could get if he was going to see Buffy again. Still, why was he looking at her like that? Uncomfortably, Cordy removed her hand from his and looked down towards Conner before looking up again. "We should go in," she whispered.
Angel nodded in agreement. "Yeah, we should." Neither one of them moved.
"O-kay, so one of us should get out of the car, and I'm suggesting that it's the person who doesn't have a baby in its arms so that he can open the door for the one who does," Cordy pointed out, which set Angel rushing to open the door for her gallantly.
As soon as they were out of the car, both of them gazed up at the house from the sidewalk. "Do you think it's changed that much since she d-died?" Angel asked wistfully.
"Dunno," Cordy murmured, shaking her head. "God, I haven't been here since high school. What a trip that was. I can't even remember what life was like back then."
"So you can't remember what it was like to be a merciless bully who preyed on the small and helpless?" Angel chuckled. "Or are you trying to repress that from your memory?"
Cordy gaped at him playfully. "Look who's talking, Mr. Past-Life-Spent-Eating-People," she shot back. Angel smiled but both their smiles faded as they turned back to the house. Cordy shrugged. "Well I guess this is it." She motioned to the house. Angel stood stock-still. She sighed, grabbing his hand and dragging him up to the front steps. He grudgingly followed her and they both stood in front of the house silently. Cordy smiled at him once more reassuringly and squeezed his hand before letting it drop to her side. Angel looked to her once more and sighed sharply before rapping on the door. Both held their breath.
"Hey Angel!" Xander threw open the door with a thud and flew unto Angel, giving him a hug and gripping him tight. Angel looked confused as he struggled to escape from Xander's life-squeezing hold. Cordy looked on with amused confusion.
"Hey, Xan-Xander," Angel said, a little breathlessly.
"Um, okay, I might have compensated a little too much for my apparent discomfort in seeing you. See, I practiced that. Cordelia!" Xander opened his arms to administer another monstrous hug.
"Um, that's okay Xander," Cordy said, backing away. "See I have a living child to be concerned for. I don't really want him not be spontaneously compressed."
"Oh," Xander's eyes glazed in startled recognition. "Who's tha---"
"Is Buffy here?" Angel cut in sharply, before Xander could finish his question. Xander tore his curious eyes from Connor back to Angel.
"Oh, um, nope, she's out."
"Out?' Angel frowned. "That's weird, I thought she would know we'd be here."
"Actually," Xander said, thinking of Spike's warning not to tell Buffy, prepared to tell Angel, but decided not to, "Um, we didn't know we were coming today," he said, trying to salvage his lost train of thought. Which was true. Spike had told them that Angel would be here tomorrow.
"Oh that," Angel said. "Yeah, we decided to leave early. We would have left later, but we couldn't get the rental car for tomorrow, only today."
"What are you doing here, Xander?" Cordy asked tersely. "Does everyone Buffy know live here now?"
Xander smirked at Cordy's familiar tone of blunt rudeness. "Oh, I'm just staying here waiting for the rest of the gang to come back. I have my own high rise apartment, thank you. Plus I'm here waiting for my fiancée, Anya, to get off work at the place she owns, the Magic Box." He smiled smugly at Cordy who looked slightly impressed.
"Wow, Xander, I guess congratulations are in order," Cordy said. "I hope you and your vengeance demon live a happy life inflicting pain and revenge on unsuspecting males, that is, until she comes after you." Xander's smile faded. It was just like high school, them zinging back and forth, with somehow Xander getting shot down in the end. Cordy laughed apologetically as she said, "Relax Xander, I'm kidding. I really do hope you and Anya are happy together. I like Anya. At least she'll keep you in line." Angel laughed and Xander looked increasingly uncomfortable. Cordy turned back to Connor who was spitting up slightly. "Oh look Angel, he's got gas or something," Cordy pointed out.
"Here, let me take him, Cordy," Angel said, gingerly lifting Conner from Cordy's arms. Xander raised his eyebrows slightly at the intimate way Angel said 'Cordy' and at the expressly tender way he looked down at the child as well as Cordy, who neared him with a smile.
"Cordy, eh? What's this, you guys already have pet names for each other? What do you call him, Teethy?" Xander waved a finger at the air between them.
Cordy made a face. "Everyone calls me Cordy now, Xander. It's a lot less pretentious than Cordelia."
"Yes, because I remember you as being the model of humility in high school," Xander mused sarcastically. He was surprised at the way Angel glared at him.
"Watch it Xander," he snapped, lurching forward slightly. At that same moment, Conner spit all over the front of Angel's front jacket. "Great," he muttered, trying to wipe away the vomit. He looked over towards Cordy. "Take him, will you? I'm going to the kitchen to get washed up." Cordy accepted him as Angel walked away.
As soon as Angel was gone, Xander looked expectantly towards Conner, itching visibly for an explanation. Cordy saw the look in his face and sighed. "Don't ask," was all she said.
"Ask what? Which lowlife impregnated you and left you to fend for yourself?"
"Xander!" Cordy stared at him incredulously. "Conner isn't mine!"
"So what? You're playing babysitter and taking the kid on a nice multi-hour long drive to Sunnydale?"
Cordy shifted uncomfortably. "He's . . ." Xander moved in for a closer listen. "He's . . . An—"
"Why is there blood in the fridge?!" Angel asked angrily as he stormed back into the foyer, holding up a jar of red liquid.
"Oh that," Xander tried to laugh cautiously. "That's Spike's."
"Spike?!" Angel's jaw clenched at the name of his childe. "What his stuff doing here?!"
"Hey relax man, I don't like it any more than I do," Xander said, placing a brotherly hand on Angel's back. "It's just that the guy helps out a lot with the patrolling and taking care of Dawn and all, so he's here a lot." Angel, still dissatisfied and angry, accepted the explanation and went back to the kitchen. Curious, Cordy moved near to Xander.
"Spike? Last time I heard, he totally wanted to jump Buffy's bones. What's his stuff really doing here? Are they . . . ?" She let the last word linger.
Xander scoffed at the question, waving his hand flippantly. "Pffft, whatever. Like Buffy would appease his sick, deluded dreams. Besides," he edged even closer to Cordy. "I think Buffy's gay."
Cordy's eyes widened. "Gay? Buffy?" Her expression was one of pure shock that soon faded into surprised recognition. "Wow. Things have changed around Sunnydale." Angel returned, having taken off his jacket. He still looked slightly angry, but a smile from Cordy calmed him a bit.
"So where's Buffy, do you know?" Angel asked, wiping away some of Conner's remnants of lunch off of his shirt. Xander shrugged.
"Um, patrolling I think . . ." His voice faded in alacrity when he saw Angel's stoic face.
"Patrolling?" he asked with slight anger edged in his voice. "With Spike?"
Xander realized his mistake and quickly tried to redeem himself. "Dude relax, they're just patrolling . . . restricting their activities to usual . . . death, carnage and slaying. What else would they be doing?"
"Spike!"
"Good luv?"
"Uh . . . huh . . . S-Spike! Ohhh my God, Spppike!"
"You like that? You want more?"
"Yes . . . Oh God Spike, more, more!"
Spike grinned devilishly as held the ice cream cone in front of Buffy to lick savagely. He kept trying to veer it tauntingly in front of Buffy's face, back and forth, and like a willing puppy, her half-open mouth and glazed eyes followed the sprinkled mound of ice cream. Eventually, tired of his game, Buffy shoved him off and grabbed the cone dancing happily in victory.
"Mine, mine, mine!" she sang, waving the cone emphatically.
Spike smiled broadly. "I'm not the one who refused to even touch the ice cream . . . . it being such a 'demonically evil fat-grabbing tool of weight gain'." He was quoting Buffy's comments from a few moments ago when they passed a ice cream stand, where Buffy wrinkled her nose and Spike immediately decided to purchase a cone of her favorite flavor to seductively lick right in front of her face. He loved the way Buffy's breathing had grown quite ragged and shallow, seeing his pink tongue sensuously sweep across the cold sweetness slowly, his eyes rolling back as he grunted with exaggerated pleasure. "Want a lick?" he had asked in deeply sexy growl, holding the cone in front of her temptingly.
"I s-said I was o-on a d-diet," stammered Buffy, her eyes never leaving the cone, melting into a soft pool of chocolate. "I-ice c-cream, b-bad."
"Yeah, well sometimes the things that are bad for you are the things that taste the best," Spike continued to growl, his eyes sparkling with mysterious allure and his brow raised suggestively. It didn't take long after that for Buffy to sweep Spike away from the cone and devour it completely. She sighed with delight after finishing the cone, and Spike, highly amused at her display, snaked a free arm around her.
"So did you have fun?" he asked as they walked along the lighted street of shops and stores, many of the closed and out of business after the recent destruction that had ensued. It was unusual that Spike and Buffy should be walking leisurely at a time like this, but somehow they had seem to completely ignore the havoc around them as they smiled into each other's eyes.
"You mean the poetry slam?" Buffy asked, her nose wrinkling. "I dunno. You hear 'slam' and you think bodies flailing, major action . . . but all they did was stand around talking about how their hearts were like the sea and all that. It was more like a poetry . . . nudge."
Spike grinned. "That's only cause you got no culture Slayer. Poetry like that is for people who understand the true nature of beauty."
"Hey!" Buffy replied, incensed. "I got culture up the wazoo! What about the Mobil Masterpiece adaptation of that British novel thing we watched on T.V.?" She pointed out. "Which was totally boring, by the way," she couldn't help adding under her breath.
Spike continued to chuckle, drawing her closer to him. "Face it luv, You got as much culture as a guest off a' Springer."
Buffy, frowning madly, pushed him off her roughly, throwing him to the side while she gripped his hands to a store window and glared at him intensely. Spike smirked at her, amused and immediately pushed her head to his, capturing her lips and tongue. Buffy willingly accepted his gesture, her hands leaving his wrists to curl around his neck. He immediately wove his pale hands through her hair and grabbed fast her to her hips to nudge them against his own, smiling as he heard the small catch in her throat.
"Umm, guys, I think there are laws against that kind of public groping," they heard a blasé, sardonic, young voice say. Reluctantly separating from each other, they turned to face Dawn, with a slight smile playing across her lips as she held her hands up to her waist. Tara stood behind her, repressing a giggle.
"Dawn!" Buffy said, smoothing her hair and clothes. "What are you doing here?"
"We're just coming back from the hospital," Tara supplied. "We were visiting Willow."
"Tara!" Buffy said, alarmed. "What are you doing here,. You shouldn't be out! With all the cops around and----"
"Don't worry, Buffy, I cast a spell to hide my Wiccan identity. Kind of like that spell I cast on you guys, just not so, you know . . . dangerously stupid."
Buffy breathed a sigh of relief, but promptly stiffened again. "What about Willow, how is she?"
Tara smiled tiredly. "She's alright. She's still unconscious, but the doctors have got her stable now."
Buffy returned with a small smile of her own. "That's a relief," she said, gripping Spike's hand as they began to walk home.
The foursome made their way home in good spirits, laughing over Buffy and Spike's accounts of the poetry slam, with Spike declaring how highly enjoyable it was and Buffy's frowns of disagreement. Everyone found it highly funny that Spike of all people found sitting around, listening to others drone on and on about flowers and love 'highly enjoyable'. It was so easy to forget he had such an inclination towards poetry.
"Whose car is that?" Buffy asked puzzledly, referring to black car in front of the house.
Spike immediately felt his stomach drop. He knew Angel's blacked-out car when he saw it. Why had that bloody bastard decide to show up a day early without letting anyone know, he thought angrily. If only he knew, he could have tried to find a way for Buffy to avoid him, like taking her out all day or something. But now, them meeting couldn't be avoided. Although somewhere deep in his consciousness, Spike knew that this was probably the better way.
Buffy had let go of Spike's hand and began to walk down the pathway to her house. She strained her eyes to the see the dark, shadowy figure that stepped out of the house and was being framed by the doorway. She stopped and stiffened. "Angel," she breathed.