Title: Runaway

Chapter 4: Slaying

Disclaimer: Chapter 1

Feedback: Please, please, please! *insert short but heartfelt plea here*

Buffy swallowed as she finally got to the front of the queue and paid her three dollar entrance fee. The line had been quite long, the place was already had an unsettling resemblance to the Bronze. When she got inside she almost bolted. The club had the same theme. It was dark, a little dirty and there was a half good band on the stage.

At that moment Buffy could almost see Willow and Xander sitting at their usual table, chatting and waiting for her to show up. She blinked quickly to try and get the imgae out of her mind. It didn't work. But thankfully at that moment Sam yelled, "Hey, Angela, we're over here!"

The illusion disappeared and Buffy hurriedly made her way over to her four new friends.

"We thought you weren't going to show," Alex told her, only half joking.

She gave him a half smile. "The line was pretty big."

"Ah. What do you want to drink?"

They talked and for a while Buffy was able to forget the memories that haunted her. She only seemed to leave Buffy Summers and fully become Angela when she was with these friends. She was even starting, however hesitantly, to start thinking that she could eventually leave Sunnydale behind her. She was in for a rude awakening.

She was laughing at one of Alex's jokes when she first felt it. A tiny, prickle on the back of her neck. A slight frown crossed over her face as she recognised the oh so familiar feeling. It had only ever meant one thing, that there was a vampire nearby. Apparently this was just another way that the club was like the Bronze.

For one long moment Buffy considered hunting out the demon and finding something to act as a stake, so that she could end its undead existance. But then she stubbornly decided that she wasn't going to anything. Buffy might have done, but Angela had no idea about the demons that haunted the night. And so she did nothing.

A little while later Buffy was glancing at the band when she noticed a boy and a girl leaving the club. Both were seemingly her age, but she new instantly that he was the vampire she had been sensing. Still doing nothing she watched as they went down the hall and out into the night. There was only one thing that could possibly happen now.

A wave of nausea swept through her body as what she had just allowed to happen suddenly hit her. "Guys, I, uh, I gotta book," she stammered. She practically ran out of the door leaving her friends looking at each other in confusion.

When she was outside Buffy managed to calm a little, with the cool air on her face. She leant against the wall, breathing heavily. She had almost recovered when she saw the vampire stroll off, wiping the last remains of blood from around his mouth. Quickly she ran into the alley and saw the girl crumpled on the ground, two gaping wounds in her neck. Buffy didn't need to check the victim's pulse to know that she was dead.

Quickly Buffy spun around and staggered out of the alley, a fresh wave of nausea hitting her. She made her way to the dingy appartment that she rented, it was the only place that she could think of at that moment.

She fumbled with her key in the lock, finally managing to open the front door. Buffy tried to keep down the contents of her stomach, but as her mind conjured up the image of the girl - her face a mask of pain, her eyes glazed - and the vampire leaving with a satisfied smirk, her stomach heaved and she barely made the bathroom in time.

Some time later Buffy lay trembling on the floor of her tiny bathroom. She had quickly thrown up the little she had eaten that day, but even then she had dry retched. After wiping her face she walked out of the room and collapsed onto the bed.

~

She twisted and turned in the hard, tiny bed. Tears streaked down her face as she moaned in her sleep, desperately trying to shake of the comforter that had gotten wrapped around her in the night. She finally got it off, but her nightmare didn't end.

"No! I didn't . . . Oh god! I didn't mean to! ANGEL!" She sat bolt upright, her eyes snapping open, as she woke up with his name on her lips. Buffy ran a trembling hand through her sweat soaked hair, not quite able to get her body back under control.

As she slowly calmed down she tried to pull bits of the nightmare from her memory, to try and face her fears, but she knew she couldn't. Even as she tried the details escaped her. She hated this part, where she would try and get details but now that she was back in her dimly lit appartment it was impossible. The nightmare was gone, leaving her with only the lingering feeling of terror and death. To Buffy it felt like she went to hell and back every night in her sleep, for all she knew she did.

Somehow in the day she managed to keep up the façade of an almost normal life, but when she was alone in her tiny appartment, the illusion deserted her. Glancing at her wrist watch Buffy saw that it was barely three o'clock. She hadn't even been asleep for an hour and a half.

Swinging her legs over the side of the bed Buffy came to a descision at that moment. She was filled with nervous energy, constantly fidgeting and always needing something to do with her hands. She suddenly thought she knew why.

It's because I haven't been slaying. It seemed so simple now that she thought about it. Now that she didn't have an outlet for all the extra energy being the Chosen One gave her, she was having to contain it. It was bottled up inside her. But didn't I run away to get away from slaying? To start a new life? She was divided. On one hand starting slaying again meant that her old life was coming back, but on the other it might help her constant fidgeting and nerves, plus the sickness she felt every time she thought of the dead girl. Besides, all I have to do is make sure it doesn't take control. It's not like I'm going extra curricular or anything with it. A traitorous little voice in the back of her head told her that she'd tried that before, that it hadn't worked, but she squashed it roughly as she pulled on her jacket and headed out of the door.

~

Walking through the streets of LA Buffy deeply breathed in the clean air. Okay so maybe it isn't clean, she amended, but anything is better than the damp, stale smell of my appartment. Everywhere was surprisingly quiet, though she knew that if you went to a different part of the city it would be another story.

As she walked she allowed herself the leisure of imagining what it would be like to be one of the few people that she saw hurrying along. To just step into their lives and have their thoughts, their feelings, their memories instead of her own. She had done something similar but not as complete. She had made herself a new life. One as Angela, but she still had all of Buffy's memories.

A piercing scream tore Buffy out of her imaginings of what life might have been like if she really was Angela.

She dashed round the corner, determined that she would stop at least one murder tonight. There was a single vampire feeding off a woman. Buffy couldn't help but be disappointed that it wasn't the one from the Gold, but you couldn't have everything.

Or anything in my case.

Unlike usual she didn't stop to exchange insults and quips. She went in like a whirlwind, hauled off the vampire and punched him in the face.

"What the hell?" He fell to the ground, blood streaming out of his nose, and a confused look on his face. Before he even had a chance to move, Buffy slammed a stake through his heart. Obviously the vampires of LA weren't used to being hunted.

Next she checked the girls pulse. It was slow, but strong.

"Hey," Buffy said gently. "Are you okay?"

"I guess. My head hurts a bit, my neck too. What happened?"

"You got mugged, they hit you in the side of the neck. Do you have a phone to call someone?"

"Uh, yeah. It's in my pocket."

Buffy waited while the girl rang someone and then led her to a bench to wait. When a car pulled up beside them, Buffy left not wanting to stick around. She watched as the girl and her boyfriend walked back to the car. Her heart clenched as she watched the obvious concern that the boy showed. With a sad smile on her face Buffy slipped into the darkness surrounding her.

~

hm, what do you think? oh by the way, spike is gonna be in the next chapter. :-)