Chapter 15: Innocence Lost, Surprise Revisited

Coughing violently, Angel stumbled into the door, his eyes fluttering helplessly from fatigue and hunger. Buffy rushed out of the bed and to his side, wrapping her arms around him and catching him before he could fall into an exhausted heap on the ground. "Oh God, oh God," she kept muttering as she surveyed him with wide eyes. "Oh God, what happened Angel?"

Angel looked up at her shakily; his head bobbing like it was too heavy for the rest of his frail body to support. He struggled to mouth words to her, but instead, he just keeled over from weakness. Buffy brought him to his feet and leveled his weight----much lighter than she remembered---onto her shoulders as she dragged him to his bed. As he lay writhing, she retrieved a pack of pig's blood from his fridge and returned to his side, holding up his head as he began to voraciously gulp down the red elixir. Buffy sat, astounded and terrified to see him in such a state. He was attacking the pack like he hadn't eaten for days, and his appearance certainly supported that theory. As soon as he finished, he sighed and looked back up at Buffy. "Thank you," was all he could murmur.

A tear fell from Buffy's cheek to his hand, which was grasping hers. She wanted to respond with a gush of questions and answers, she wanted to ask him where he was and how he got like this and how he could have left her and why did he. She wanted to scream these questions, let go of all the pain and hurt and confusion she had felt for the past three weeks and now presently. But instead she just nodded. "Let's get you washed up," she whispered softly.

They had gotten Angel out of the filthy rags he wore, and Buffy had waited while he took a shower and changed into cleaner clothes. He almost looked as if nothing had changed as he donned a pair of usual spotless pants and somehow got his hair to go back to the on-end shock it used to be. But they both knew that behind it all, something was different, horribly and painfully. And it seemed like it suddenly made everything they did, every casual and brief absent touch between their fingers, or an awkward glance into each other's eyes seem more dangerous. So they just sat in silence on his bed while Buffy attended to the bruises and cuts on his bare chest. But finally Angel broke the gut-wrenching silence.

"It's your birthday today," he said softly.

Buffy looked at him with pained eyes, but she tried keeping it light and concentrating at the task at hand. "Yeah, it is," she murmured, still dabbing his chest with gauze.

He was visibly struggling to make small talk. As if they ever were good at small talk. "Was it good?"

"What?"

"Your birthday."

Buffy twitched her lips. She couldn't tell him how excruciatingly un-good her birthday was, and that he was the main cause for it. "It was alright, I guess."

He knew she was lying. "Did you get a lot of gifts?"

She brightened weakly. "Yeah, actually I did . . . I got a lot of great stuff, even Spike gave me something----" Her voice faded and she turned downcast when she realized that Spike was the last person they should have been talking about.

He paused, aware of the slip and straightened uncomfortably. A few minutes of silence as he pondered what to say next. Finally he motioned to his tattered jacket lying strewn over the table. "I, umm, got you a present too."

Buffy stared at him, shocked. He was obviously somewhere off starving to death and wasting away into desperate oblivion and all he cared about was remembering her birthday. "Angel, you didn't have to----"

He kept nodding towards the jacket. "Just look in the left hand coat pocket."

She obeyed, getting up and searching the pocket until she withdrew a small black box. Flipping it open, she gave a little gasp as she viewed the shining little ring sitting in it. "It's beautiful," she said, sitting back next to him.

"It's a claddagh ring," he explained quietly. "A Celtic symbol of my people. The two hands sharing one heart. It means----well it should be pretty obvious what it means."

She gazed up from the ring to Angel and had begun crying softly again. "Thank you Angel," she whispered.

"Try it on," he directed, taking the ring from the box and slipping it onto one of her fingers. "If you put it on with the hands directed towards you, that means you have someone," he murmured. He was putting the hands so they directed her. It was enough to finally break her from self-imposed restraint.

"God, Angel, why did you come back?" she finally pleaded, not caring to draw her hand from his. "W-why did you come back just to give me this?"

He gazed guiltily at his hands. "I don't know Buffy," he said with a hint of despair in his voice. "I . . . I tried so hard to stay away from you, but there was nothing for me, I couldn't take it, I just had to see you, I can't help it that I love you so much----" Buffy's eyes widened, a wave of strange calmness washing over her. It was the first time he had said those three little words most important to any girls' heart, and she felt everything around her stop. So she shut him up by smashing her lips to his in a long kiss. Startled, he backed away slightly, looking at her with slight panic. "Buffy-----," was all he said with caution in his voice.

Grinning with tears in her eyes, she pressed a finger to his lip and shook her head. Slowly she kissed him again, and this time he didn't relent. He kissed her back and they sank backwards into the bed.

She was dreaming. Too clear to be one of those hazy, meaningless dreams that flutter through your mind in stages of restlessly light sleep. This seemed real, a scene ripped out of clarity and consciousness. She was standing in the graveyard with Angel by her side. Their hands were grasped, the silver claddagh ring winking in the moonlight. And again she felt the tranquil calmness as before as she looked up and smiled at him. His boyish face was beaming back at her, but suddenly, he dropped her hand and the ring fell slowly into the soft grass. Confused, she stared down at it and looked back to Angel for some kind of explanation. But his loving face had already transformed and the yellow eyes glinted in the shadowy darkness. Before she could gasp with horror and raise her hand with stake poised and ready, he grabbed her and gave her a long kiss so that she could feel his fangs through his mouth. He released her and smiled devilishly. "I'm back in town, baby," he said in a foreign voice full of mockery. "And I have you to thank for it."

Buffy couldn't make out what he meant, she only felt a mind-numbing fear for this demon in front of her, one who had replaced her boyfriend so completely. She sank her arm down, aiming for his chest, but suddenly he had disappeared, the vision of him dissipating into darkness. And instead, her stake landed in the chest of a shocked boy whose blue eyes were wide with pain. Spike. Horrified, she withdrew the stake from his chest quickly, but it was too late. Spike was dead and lying at her feet in a pool of blood. Turning around in terror, she again saw Angel to her right, still grinning perniciously. He nodded down at Spike's limp form. "He has you to thank for that too," he murmured, smiling now wider than before.

Suddenly awake, she sat upright in bed, gasping painfully, wiping the sweat from her anxious brow. It was just a dream, just a dream, she thought, still with panic. She gulped slowly, trying to ease herself down, but automatically, her arm went to the other side of the bed for comfort. Grasping nothing but air, she worriedly sat up. Through the night's shadows, she saw nothing beside her but rumpled sheets, still carrying the imprint of one's body. Disturbed, she brought the bed sheets to her chest and searched the room for any other presence. But she was alone. Where was Angel?

Drusilla was unused to walking home herself, despite her London street upbringing. She always had a mate to accompany her, someone who Munitz always commanded to take her home. London streets were too dangerous for a lady like her to be ambling about alone, her brother repeatedly said. She was secretly always relieved. She was never one to take care of herself. She always had Munitz or Spike to do that for her. But tonight, both her caretakers had insisted on going off and getting drunk together somewhere, leaving her to fend for herself. Munitz reasoned that a town with a name like Sunnydale was nothing to be afraid of, and Spike was already much too drunk to point out otherwise. And it's not as if anyone else from the party would offer to walk with her home; she rather disliked this Buffy girl's mates, they all seemed insipid, and most of all, they thought she was strange as well. So she assured her brother and her boyfriend that she'd probably be just fine, it was a short walk from here to Giles' condo and that she'd be alright by herself.

But now she was beginning to get nervous. She had crossed out of the neighborhoods with the friendly porch and streetlights. She was in some sort of alleyway and she was confused as to where she was headed. And she was always jumping at each sound, each small snap or cricket's chirp. So she walked a little faster, her teeth on edge. Suddenly she heard the soft clack of male footsteps behind her and she nearly screamed as she turned around. A man, silhouetted in the shadows walked gingerly towards her. His pale face seemed full of concern and his brown eyes shone kindly. "Are you alright?" he asked, nearing her. "You shouldn't be walking all alone this time of night."

She smiled a little, relieved but still a little jarred. This man didn't seem like the harm that she feared. "I-I know, I thought I'd be fine, but . . . it looks as though I'm rather lost."

He cocked his head sympathetically. "Oh well, we'll just have to change that, won't we? I've been a resident here for awhile, why don't I try to get you to where you're trying to go?"

She grinned widely now. "Oh would you? I'd appreciate it."

"No problem. Here, I'll even walk you the whole way there."

And so they set off. The stranger seemed nice enough and knew exactly where it was she wanted to go. He even politely and attentively listened as Drusilla explained why she had been wandering aimlessly at this time of night. " . . . And then my brother and Spike went off to go to some pub or something---"

He suddenly stopped and held his hand up. "Wait. Did you say Spike?"

She nodded proudly. "Yeah, he's my boyfriend . . .why, do you know him?"

The stranger smiled, his smile getting broader by the moment. "Actually, yes, we go way back. I was very good friends with his mother."

She frowned puzzledly. "His mother died quite awhile ago, and you look rather young, so how is that?"

He shrugged carelessly as they continued walking. "Well our interlude together was rather brief, but I felt I got to know her pretty well . . . Anyway, enough about me, may I just stop and say that that is a stunning dress?" He paused and looked down at her bright red and black, long lace dress in appreciation.

She looked down at it shyly. "W-well thank you," she said, nodding her head gratefully.

"It really does remind me of the fairy tale----you know, Red Riding Hood?"

She laughed a little nervously. "I don't think I know that one too well. It's an American tale isn't it?"

He frowned. "Oh I don't think so. 'Little Red Riding Hood' is really a universal story, you see. A little girl, in this brilliant red coat is lost in the woods, trying to get to her grandmother's house. And so this wolf comes along and he tries to trick her right? He tells her the long way to get to the house so he can get there first and eat the grandmother and hide in her bed so he can snack on Little Red when she comes."

Drusilla was becoming increasingly apprehensive now. She was entertaining thoughts that this stranger was a little too strange---even for her. "Sounds like a rather morbid tale to tell to children," she said uneasily.

But he just paced towards her all the while, a strange look of satisfaction crossing his face. "It's actually very funny," he said, chuckling to himself, his head bobbing easily and recklessly from his neck. "Because she gets there, and there's this whole conversation between the wolf and the girl, see? She's going 'My what big eyes you have, oh what big ears you have' and so on like that. And the wolf is being clever saying 'The better to see you with or hear you with'. And you know what Little Red Riding Hood finally asks?"

She shook her head with fear, visibly frightened now and she nearly tripped herself in backing away. Her throat was parched silent and her glittering eyes were wide.

He was still laughing, his laugh growing more boisterous. Suddenly he stopped and paused, looking at her now malignantly in the eyes. He shook his head, and suddenly his smooth features where changed into something that Drusilla had seen only once and twice before, but never by herself. "My, but what big teeth you have," he growled.

She screamed, a long and terror-stricken scream that once more filled the stranger's ears with voluptuous joy, his siren song once more. She tried running in a full sprint from him, but she fell and struggled to get up. Suddenly, she was caught from behind, one hand lifting her up by the throat, leaving her kicking and flailing desperately. Snarling with laughter, the stranger surveyed her intently. "Really does remind you of the story, doesn't it," he said, sweeping one hand down to finger the material of the red dress carefully, dragging one hand slowly across her upper leg. He winked at her as hysterical tears streamed down her face. He leaned in and inhaled the heady aroma wafting from under the pale skin of her long neck. "The better to eat you with, my dear . . ." he murmured to himself before he sank his fangs through.