Title: The French Connection
Author: Lily
Rating: PG to PG-13
Spoilers: Bargaining, but really only part one
Disclaimer: pshaw. not mine.
Summary: Yes, the resurrection worked. But no, it didn't wake
Buffy up where she last was (that part seems to have gotten messed
up, no?)...
Author's Note: *la la la* denotes Buffy thoughts
Oz took his hand off of Buffy's back once more to look for his keys. She glanced around the small third-floor landing of the apartment building. Oz turned the key in the lock and pushed open the door, holding it for her. Flipping on the lights and closing the door behind them, Oz explained, "This is actually a friend's apartment. I'm staying here while I'm in Paris...he's out of town for a while."
Extending his hand, Oz waited for Buffy to take it. She looked at it, then up at Oz, her eyes wide. She gulped and shook her head, refusing to accept the offer.
"What's the matter? Let me show you the living room, you can sit down..."
Oz stopped coaxing Buffy as she slowly brought her shaking hands up from her sides. They had been clenched for almost the entire walk. The metallic smell of blood, mixed with the scent of Buffy and fear, exploded into Oz's nostrils. Her palms were scraped raw. Long, dirty lines ran from her fingers to her wrists, apparently from skidding on the ground.
Oz gave up on the leading-by-the-hand concept and motioned for Buffy to follow him.
He led her to a small living room, bare other than a couch, a coffee table, and a television set. She sat on the sofa.
Seating himself across from her on the coffee table, Oz looked at her with concern. "Is it just your hands?"
"No...my knees. Scraped. I...I think I fell." She gingerly lifted the hem of her black dress to reveal her knees; scraped, but not so badly as her hands.
"Okay, wait here just one second. I'm going to look for a first aid kit." He stood again and left the room.
She could hear rummaging, but still felt very alone. Oz hadn't turned on the lights in the room, and the long shadows divided the walls into wide stripes. Light from the window fell on a book with a title she could not understand.
*French. In France.*
She was still studying the words when Oz walked in, arms full of bandages. He put the supplies on the table and turned on a lamp before sitting back down. The warm light and his nearness comforted Buffy, and she felt her hands stop shaking.
Without a word, Oz gently took her arm at the elbow and maneuvered her hand to lie palm-up on her thigh. Soaking a cotton ball in hydrogen peroxide, he started on her left hand. Touching the ripped skin with the cotton, even as gently as Oz was doing it, stung like nothing else. Buffy gasped. He abruptly pulled away, but she looked hum in the eyes and whispered, "I'm okay."
It was a slow process--Oz was afraid of making her hands worse. Neither spoke as he finally wrapped a bandage around her right hand, matching it to her left. "Fini."
Buffy let her hands rest in her lap. She tried to wipe her eyes with her shoulder, but more tears, in addition to those caused by pressure on her wounds, were too late to stop.
Oz looked up from capping the antiseptic to find Buffy staring
at her hands, tears running down her face. She looked up and met
his eyes for a moment before collapsing forward, her head landing
beside his neck as she cried into his shoulder, slipping off the
couch so that he was supporting all of her weight. All he could
do was rub her back and let her cry.
**end three**