TITLE: Happy Endings Are All The Same
AUTHOR: Sunny D
DISCLAIMER: Thankfully it all belongs to Joss
RATING: PG
PAIRINGS: B/A, B/S implied
NOTES: takes place in BtVS S6 up to 'Doublemeat Palace' and Angel early S3, but Pylea, Darla and Connor never happened, (oh if only…)
There's no such thing as a quiet night in LA; the glare of neon lighting illuminates the darkness until it rivals the brightness of day, allowing the city's dwellers to pursue hectic 24 hour lives. With the human residents permanently out to play, the city shines out like an all-night snack bar, attracting every type of unsavoury creature of darkness.
But not this night.
There were no helpful visions from Cordelia, no cries for help despite hours spent trawling the city's streets, and seemingly no hopeless souls in need of a saviour. Angel finally retraced his steps to the hotel just before dawn, feeling restless and wound up.
Shedding the weight of his leather duster he briefly considered trying to sleep, but lying awake with all this nervous energy was a recipe guaranteed to lead his mind to bad places, and while it would probably surprise his friends to know it, he didn't actually invite brooding thoughts.
Deciding that a few hours with a punching bag would relieve some of the tension he felt humming through his body, he turned to head for the basement, but as he passed
the front desk and the huge pile of case files that still needed closing, he scrapped that idea too. If they could make a dent in their increasing backlog of paperwork, they could actually get paid, and more importantly, he could look forward to five minutes peace from Cordelia.
He was still wide awake and buried in paperwork when he caught the sound of Wesley's familiar step in the foyer hours later. A glance at the clock caused the vampire to shake his head in awe, boss of the company and not so much as a minute late; the Englishman was truly impressive.
"Angel?" Wesley exclaimed, stopping in the doorway surprised. "Shouldn't you be resting?"
"Hey Wes," Angel responded with a sigh. He closed the file on the telekinetic girl that would probably only net them enough money for Cordelia to buy a new handbag, before looking up and stretching. "I'm feeling kind of…" he paused, wondering what it was that had been bothering him all morning, "…antsy," he finished lamely.
"In the sense of something evil approaching?" Wesley enquired eagerly in a tone that was partly fearful concern at the possible impending danger, but also worryingly close to 'this will require books' excitement.
"Not sure," Angel told him, rising from the desk so that Wesley could stop hovering uncertainly in that very subtle way he had as he slowly adjusted to his new position as boss.
"Hmmm, the Agrican prophesy is supposed to transpire sometime this year, but I'm fairly sure it's in the Eastern hemisphere. Now the rising of the Dukard Warrior…" Wesley ran excited fingers along the top of a bookshelf considering obscure titles that he had once boasted were intelligible to only a select few in the world, but had failed to add were of interest to even less, "…could well be in this part of the world. But there's very little information pertaining to the time frame..."
"I'll just be upstairs," Angel interrupted him, inching out of the room.
"Right," Wesley mused in response, his eyes never leaving the shelf.
A long hot shower and a change of clothes later, Angel's mood was no lighter and he had begun to consider the merits of the work-out after all when the bedside phone rang.
"Angel…" the minute pause was barely noticeable but it was so unlike Cordelia to ever hold back from saying anything that the vampire's stomach immediately clenched and he knew with a painful certainty that it had to be bad news, "…it's Willow."
They really had to start calling each other for reasons other than delivering bad news, he mused despondently as Cordelia put the call through.
"Angel?" A breathless voice came on the line.
"Willow, what's wrong?" Angel asked gently, trying not to panic, bad news didn't mean she was dead…again.
"Have you seen or heard from Buffy?" she asked anxiously.
"Not since…" he paused, remembering a car park, somewhere not here and not there, "…not for a while. Is she hurt?"
"No, it's…" Willow paused and Angel heard her collect herself.
The situation was coldly familiar.
"…Dawn's dead," she finally managed. "A Broman demon. Yesterday," she continued, verbalising the thoughts in whatever order they came to her. She didn't spit them out quickly as though afraid that they would choke her – like she did the last time she'd had to give him similar news – but her voice was weary and it was hard to get past her pain to take in the message. "Buffy killed it, but we haven't seen her since".
Buffy's little sister - the reason she'd jumped off that scaffold to her death the first time, and the only reason she hadn't the second - was gone. The antsy feeling turned into a full-out painful ache and Angel wondered if she was somewhere breaking into more pieces than they would be able to put back together this time.
"Angel?" Willow asked, the vampire's lack of respiration making it difficult to tell whether he was still on the line.
"Yeah?" he reassured her, trying to focus.
"If she comes to you…just take care of her till we get there?"
"I will," he promised. And then there was just the empty tone.
He slumped back in his chair sighing tiredly and wondering if Buffy had remained the fragile creature he'd met in the car park that night, because if she had, there was no telling what she might be doing now.
"He's been up there for a while, maybe I should go up," Cordelia suggested, dumping her filing on the front desk and startling her colleagues.
"He's been up there for 10 minutes Cordelia, give him some time," Wesley called from his office.
"Sunnydale's already killed the woman he loves twice, anything could have happened," Cordelia argued, her concern evident despite her bluntness.
"If the man wanted to talk he'd come down," Gunn reminded her, deliberately failing to recall the last time Angel had needed to talk but chosen not to, preferring to spiral down a destructive downward slope instead.
"Jeez, you guys are so – Angel!" Cordelia exclaimed, catching sight of him. "What happened?"
"Dawn's dead," Angel announced without preamble, descending the final steps to the foyer, "A Broman demon. Buffy's missing."
"You think she might come here?" Cordelia asked in that gentle way she had on the rare occasion when she forgot that her sole reason for existing was to make everybody else's life miserable.
Sighing tiredly, Angel leaned on the front desk, "We haven't been very close, I don't know if she…" he stopped suddenly, straightening up as he felt a familiar tingle down his spine. The others followed his gaze to the glass hotel doors and a second later she was there - fumbling with the handle, seemingly disorientated.
Angel crossed the floor to meet her, getting as close as he could without stepping into the morning sunlight.
"Angel!" Buffy slurred, stumbling inside. Most of her hair had escaped from the bun at the back of her head and hung limply framing her pale, tired features. Her sweater was dirty and her skirt revealed an almost indecent amount of skin through a long ragged tear as she leaned heavily back on the door to steady herself, before attempting to take a swaying step forward. "I…" she hiccupped, "…caught you."
Even if the stench of alcohol hadn't hung on her like an old friend, the almost empty, family sized Jack Daniels she held clutched precariously in her left hand would have revealed the story of the night's activities to any in doubt.
"Buffy…?" Angel started alarmed, wanting to reach out and hold her; but sunlight separated them and she seemed unable to leave the door and close the distance.
"I just wanted to say goodbye," she announced, speaking carefully as though trying to hide the effort it took to hunt through an alcohol-addled mind for each word in the sentence.
"Where are you going?" he asked gently, his concern growing tenfold.
Buffy paused, screwing up her features as she tried to recall the plan she had decided on during the dizzying drive into the city.
"The Hellmouth," she suddenly recalled with a self-congratulatory point of a finger, "I turn around and…" she hiccupped again, loudly, "…it's sent some new evil out…" hiccup "…to kill someone I love, so I thought I'd go down there…" hiccup "…and find out what the big idea was."
She spoke coherently, but far too calmly to be at all conscious of her words and Angel prepared to grab her from the sunlight should she make any move out of the door.
Instead she took a shaky step toward him finally letting go of the door-frame.
"You know who we *really* need right now?" she asked, swaying slightly as she eyed him quizzically.
She opened her mouth to continue and then abruptly clamped it shut looking like she was about to retch. The alcohol swished inside the bottle and her swallow was audible in the stillness of the room as the other occupants watched the Slayer in stunned silence, wondering what would come out of her mouth next.
"Angelus," she finally choked out, and the tone of the silence changed to shocked confusion. "He's always got some great end of the world plan cooking." She took another unsteady step toward Angel. One more and he'd be able to grab her.
Her eyes slipped slowly to half mast and she paused in her forward motion, trying desperately to stay on her feet.
"Buffy, I heard what happened," Angel started softly, trying not to scare her, "I think you need to…"
"What?" She cut him off, her eyes wide and alert again, her tone angry, "Lie down? Sleep it off? Cry a little?"
She giggled suddenly, stepping sideways as the laugh upset her balance further.
"I don't think I have any water left Angel," she confided, staring into his eyes, the glassy expression in her own explaining the smile on her face. "I mean I cried when you died, I cried when you left," she stumbled backward a step nearly tripping over her ankle length skirt, and Angel's heart that couldn't beat contracted painfully as he ached to soothe away so much suffering, created by a list that started with the hurt he had caused.
"I cried over Mom. I cried over Riley," she giggled again, "By the time I died I was all cried out. So this time around," she lifted the whiskey bottle in a salute to the room, "I thought I'd have a drink".
She stopped abruptly, arm still held high, then like an invisible hand had cut her strings she fell forward, the bottle shattering in a shower of glass and amber liquid just before Angel caught her.