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…)
The sun had set and the room was blanketed in darkness when Buffy woke to mind-splitting pain and a bed she didn't recognise. The torture of moving her head tempted her to simply remain prone, but her Slayer survival instincts forced her to ignore the discomfort and rotate her neck for some clue as to her location. Sore, bloodshot eyes connected with a large figure in the chair beside her bed and suddenly a familiar tingling in her body pronounced itself above the myriad of other feelings, forcing her to bite back a gasp of alarm that would certainly wake her companion. She stared at him, her brain struggling to endure the agony in order to churn through the slew of thoughts assaulting her. What was she doing in Angel's…? And then she remembered the bar, and crashing in with that memory came the rest of the night and, though a second before she would not have thought it possible, her heart curled in on itself and the pain became worse.
Swiftly she sat up in bed, welcoming the nausea it brought on, because you can't linger on painful thoughts about promises you failed to keep and another member of your already small family that you will never see again, when somebody is driving an extremely long nail through the centre of your head with mind-numbing precision. Of course the action brought to life the unnaturally still figure beside her, but even that was preferable to the black hole threatening on the edge of her subconscious.
Angel leaned forward to snap on the bedside lamp and Buffy winced despite its soft glow. She saw him reach out a tentative hand and flinched away from his touch, angry that some unconscious part of herself, no doubt the same part that had carried her to the one person she couldn't stand to be with, wanted him to touch her, to comfort her. She swung her legs over the side of the bed, firmly resisting the urge to clutch her throbbing head.
"Where are you going?" he asked gently, undeterred.
She could feel the resentment smouldering inside her flare up to scorch the back of her throat and she barely squeezed out a curt, "Home," before it choked off further explanation.
His concerned gaze bored into her averted face as she scanned his floor for her boots and she sent up a silent plea to whatever Powers might be watching that he wouldn't speak, that he would just let her get her things and leave. That way they could go back to that non-communication thing they were doing so well and it would be like she'd never even turned up on his doorstep.
But as usual the Powers paid no heed to her desires.
"I think you should stay here tonight," he suggested quietly, and it was like somebody had thrown lighter fluid on the burning coals in her chest.
Her head swivelled to pin him with a look and for a second all the hate and rage and pain that she felt towards him glittered clearly out of hard green eyes as she responded with an equally quiet, "Really?" Then, almost as quickly as it had appeared, the expression disappeared as she plastered on something friendly and entirely dishonest. It wasn't his fault she was there and she really didn't want to get into a discussion about her feelings. She conjured up an apologetic smile, "I'm sorry, I've already wrecked your day, I have no right to be rude."
"You didn't wreck my day Buffy," he assured her quickly, but she'd already offered him all the charity she could spare and he found himself talking to thin air as she crossed the room to her boots.
"Was I wearing a jacket?" she asked, focused once again on the task of leaving.
He paused, trying not to stammer in confusion, "Uh, no," then opened his mouth to continue but found himself ungraciously interrupted.
"Good. I'm just going to use your bathroom," she announced, already escaping into the adjoining room.
She closed the door and leaned against it for a moment, trying to cool the feverish roaring in her head against its cool surface. The churn of emotions Angel inspired sat on top of the aching in her skull and alongside the gnawing pain of what she couldn't forget she had just lost, and altogether it was too much. She couldn't handle Angel now; she didn't have the strength.
She straightened and snapped on the light, blinking at its strength, her head throbbing a little harder in response. But it was quiet in here, and he was out there; she just needed to compose herself, gather the strength to walk past him and out.
Stepping forward to the sink she took in her surroundings. His bathroom was immaculate, gleaming in its whiteness, everything clean and perfectly ordered. Typical Angel. She turned on the tap and held her hands under the cooling stream. Was this the way he wanted his life? Neat and ordered, nothing burning out of control, or taking up more space than he allocated? Nothing that he couldn't control or predict?
'Stop it Buffy,' she mentally chastised herself, but she could almost feel him pacing outside that door, probably wondering what to say to make it better, totally oblivious to the fact that kind words from him just made it a million times worse. Why did he only bother to care when she was falling apart? Wasn't she worth loving whole and happy? She felt her gut clench with bitter anger and raised a cupped, water-filled hand to her face hoping that washing the sour taste of vomit from her mouth would soothe the rest of her body.
It didn't.
She rinsed her face and turned off the tap, straightening. All she had to do was walk – fast - past him, down the stairs, out the front door. Ally his fears, assure him she was fine, it was what he wanted to believe anyway.
Damn, why couldn't she have just got drunk and jumped off a bridge or something? Instead she had to keep spinning back to him like some kind of boomerang, check in for a little more pain and heartache.
She dried her face on a neatly folded towel, smoothed down her hair and opened the bathroom door.
"Thanks for the bed," she paused long enough to say while heading for the door and before Angel could summon up the words his frown suggested he wanted to voice, the door stood ajar and she was gone.
Angel was so intent on deciding what to say to Buffy next, it took him a second to notice the commotion downstairs.
"Listen bitch, if I wanted to kill you, you'd already be lying there with your throat ripped out." An angry cockney voice rang out from below. "I just want to know if the Slayer's here."
Angel quickened his step wondering why Spike was suddenly so impatient to see Buffy, after all he'd had a good couple of years to fail at killing her, a few more minutes weren't going to increase his chances.
"The only reason why you aren't already dust Spike is because Angel might prefer to do it himself," Wesley calmly replied.
"Spike," Buffy's voice joined the conversation, it sounded strangely cheerful, and Angel turned the corner to see her descending the stairs towards the aggravating blond. "Making new friends?" she asked sweetly, indicating the three crossbows pointing directly at Spike's chest.
"Slayer," Spike breathed a sigh of relief and above him Angel stopped dead, his eyes locked on his grandchilde. In the unnaturally long time that he had known the vicious young demon, he could recall him using that tone with exactly one person. Slowly, he took in the vampire's dishevelled appearance; the bloodshot eyes that suggested he had spent the day with them wide open, waiting for night, the blond hair that looked like it had been raked over by restless hands in every direction before letting the night air play its part, the wrinkled clothes that had obviously been on for a couple of days.
"Where've you been?" Spike demanded, but his eyes were narrowed in badly disguised concern and Angel switched his gaze to Buffy with rapidly increasingly alarm.
"Drinking," she responded, apparently used to the familiarity that to Angel was so new and strange. He forced himself to move again.
"Ready to go?" Buffy asked, reaching the bottom step and ignoring the three people itching to turn Spike into a dusty pile. Pleased and relieved that despite running off to LA she wasn't planning to stay, Spike nodded and they turned for the door.
"Buffy!" Angel called out hurrying down the stairs and immediately drawing all eyes to himself. She turned back to face his approaching figure and Spike tensed, taking a possessive step closer to her, his eyes practically daring Angel to make a move on the woman standing beside him. Angel ignored the look to address himself to Buffy.
"You're not dealing with this," he told her, a quick glance over her shoulder including the company she was keeping as part of the problem.
"Angel, I'm sorry I dragged you into this," she patiently echoed her words from earlier.
"Why?" he asked, confused.
She sighed, "Something bad happens in my life and I come running to you, that is so high school".
Cordelia dropped the bolt from her crossbow behind them, no doubt surprised to hear Buffy voice what she had always thought. Angel ignored her, determined to make his point understood this time.
"You don't have to apologise Buffy, I am always here for you," he told her softly, but a short unpleasant laugh from Spike ruined the moment and Buffy couldn't help raising an eyebrow as she responded with an unconvincing, "Yeah", then turned once again to go.
"Buffy?" Angel's hand on her forearm pulled her back to face him and Spike growled, whirling to stand menacingly in his face; only Buffy's lightning-fast reaction stopped him from ripping into his grandsire. The tension was tangible as the two vampires stood over the woman they loved, one willing to do anything for her but stay, the other ready to do anything but leave. Buffy was reminded of a similar face–off in her dorm room so long ago, and like then, she didn't have the energy or the inclination for a macho, alpha male contest.
"Spike!" It could have been the rasp of fatigue underlying the warning in her voice, or Spike's quick glance into her weary blood-shot eyes, but to the collective surprise of the room he took a step back, giving her physical space, but angry eyes warning her that Angel was still far too close.
Trying to suppress a relieved sigh, Buffy switched her attention to Angel and found him staring at her, his face closed and impenetrable. Shrugging out of his grasp she raised a questioning eyebrow and he picked up the thread of conversation where Spike had broken it.
"Buffy, you're not okay," he told her seriously, after a pause.
Spike guffawed from his position behind them as though the observation were hilarious and Angel lost his neutral mask, an angry scowl on his face drawing a graphic picture of the various ways he desperately wanted to torture and kill his grandchilde.
Buffy sighed again, trying to be patient with him. "Angel, I haven't been okay in a long time," she told him soberly; but his attention wasn't on her.
"Can we go somewhere without an audience?" he asked, his eyes fixed on the figure behind her.
She waved an irritated hand in his face to draw his eyes back to her, "We have nothing left to say Angel, I'm going home."
"And then what? You're going to patrol? Act like everything is okay?" he demanded, annoyance creeping into his voice as concern, jealousy, confusion and a wave of other emotions bubbled over inside him.
"No. I *also* have funeral arrangements to make," she threw back, angry now.
"And that's it? You're just going to move on?" His voice rose as he stared into the cold eyes of a girl he did not recognise.
"What do you want me to do? Break down and cry on your shoulder? Open up and share the pain? Let you inside?" she asked sarcastically, each suggestion a cutting barb.
"I want you to act like you care!" he thundered back at her.
A deafening silence choked every sound from the room. Buffy's face burnt crimson as she fought to control emotions that threatened both tears and violence. Angel took an instinctive step back, immediately contrite, but the hateful glare on Buffy's face told him it was too late for remorse.
She sucked in a breath and he braced himself for a tide of anger.
"Everybody I love dies or they leave," she finally spat out between clenched teeth, "and it doesn't matter how much I *care* about them." Her eyes bored into him and there was no reply he could make; Joyce and Dawn had had no choice over leaving her, he had. But he thought she'd understood, she'd let him go so easily, surely she understood.
"Buffy, I didn't leave to hurt you," he told her, gently but slightly impatient.
She caught his tone and felt her ire rise as she raised a hand to silence him, "Stop I think I know this one," she mocked coldly.
"Buffy…" he started, annoyed.
"No," she interrupted, "You've lived for 250 years, how many Slayers have you known with children and white picket fences and days spent frolicking in the frigging sunshine?" she demanded.
He sighed, "That doesn't mean…"
"That I can't be the first?" she finished for him. "What, because you said so? Jeez, join us on this planet why don't you."
"Oh, well *you* clearly have two feet planted on the ground," Angel threw back forgetting he was supposed to be comforting and supportive, "Is there a reason you're hanging out with Mr Chaos and Mayhem over there?" Angel indicated Spike with a disgusted jerk of his head.
After the day and night that he'd just had, Spike wanted nothing more than to work out his pain in a good hard fight and Buffy had to plant herself solidly in front of him to stop him surging forward.
"My life is none of your business," Buffy told him simply, tired of the conversation, "Seems to me if you cared you wouldn't have left." She tossed out the simple statement that summed up their relationship as far as she was concerned and with it dismissed her former lover for what she hoped would be the last time. "How are we travelling?" she asked Spike, turning to face him.
"Bike," Spike replied shortly, still itching to pound Angel into the ground.
"Good, let's break some speed limits," she suggested walking around him and heading for the door, hoping that he wanted to follow her more than he wanted to fight his grandsire.
The, "Whatever you say Slayer," that finally answered her made her smile and she noted absently that it was almost impossible to be depressed around Spike.
The cold night air hit her as they stepped outside and she couldn't wait to leave behind 'falling apart, can't deal Buffy' that Angel always seemed to inspire. You fight, shit happens and you die, it was a simple equation, Spike knew it, she was finally getting it, Angel could live in denial for the rest of eternity if he wanted but that was the truth of it. Sanity, peacefulness, happiness…fleeting moments at best; it was time to let go of all of that, fight the fight and then let go.
She stopped at the expensive looking, no doubt stolen, bike parked in front of the hotel and was a little startled to feel a warm, comforting weight settle around her shoulders.
"Maybe the next time you decide to leave town you could take a jacket," Spike suggested gruffly as she shrugged into his leather coat.
"It's not like you need it," she reminded him, hitching her skirt up so that she could slide onto the bike behind him.
"It's a *look* Buffy," he told her pointedly, before starting the engine.
Buffy wrapped her arms around his body and leaned her head on his back with a smile. 'Fight and then let it go' she told herself again, life was so much more bearable when you learned the rules.
In the hotel lobby Angel stood staring numbly at the empty doorway, feeling like he'd skipped an entire chapter in their relationship. There was no reconciling the angry, disillusioned young woman who'd just walked out with the sweet girl he used to know. It was like the broken pieces had all come back together - wrong.
Somewhere behind him he heard Gunn ask if his ex had ever dated humans, but he had no energy to waste on taking offence.
He wondered where the break had come. All those times he'd walked away; the lost day, her mother's funeral, that deserted car park, were they his opportunities to save her? How many times had she fallen before she decided it wasn't worth getting up again?
The ever-present companion that was his guilt would never allow him to believe that he gave enough in their relationship to justify what he took from her, but as he stood in his cavernous hotel, the voices of his colleagues, people he loved but never with the passion and ferocity that he cared for Buffy, bickering softly in the background, he wondered for the first time if maybe what they'd had was enough. He wondered if the moments of happiness they'd shared had been the best the world had been willing to allow her. He remembered how every glance she'd sent his way that day had been equal parts hurt and rage, and the happy ending he'd sacrificed their relationship for twisted painfully in his empty gut.