Puppy pt. 4.
Same disclaimer as before.
The sound suddenly stops, and we risk a glance at the young woman glaring down at us.
"Do you have any idea what you've done?" she hisses through clenched teeth.
Buffy gets to her feet, brushing vampire dust off her knees. "Uh, dusted a bunch of vamps and destroyed their operation?"
"No, you idiot! You've completely screwed up one of the best vengeance scenarios I had going! What's wrong with you people? Can't you just do what you're foretold?"
I stand as well, and regard the woman with a cocked eyebrow.
A gleam of light hits the woman's chest, and the large blue bauble she wears there blinds my eyes with glare.
Realization suddenly hits me, and I sway under a brutal assault of images not my own.
More Sunnydale, more Watcher with his gaggle of children, more sunlight, another image of a graveyard, this time complete with picture of Buffy and me hunting something together, holding hands as we stalk it through the night.
Someone's shaking my shoulder, hard. A smack hits my left cheek, and I jerk my eyes open, her green ones gazing intently into mine. "Angel, what the hell- are you all right?"
I draw in a breath to speak, and notice it's shaky. "More of those visual memories I told you about."
The other woman stalks in between us, and hits me as well.
"Ow! What was that for?" my hand goes to my stinging face.
Scowling, she tells me, "for ruining my job. You've completely screwed it up. And how the hell are you having visions- are you special or something? What's your deal, mister?" she gets right in my face, and as she leans in, I take the opportunity to yank the blue stone from around her neck.
"Hey! Give that back! That's my…"
"Power center," finishes Buffy, and I look at her in shock.
"How did you know?" She turns toward me.
"I was actually reading the books Giles had, you know. Not spending all the time being distracted by you, all though I'm not sure why I cared to."
She moves closer, as if to touch me, or something else.
The demon woman is suddenly right there, and I jerk my hand away as she grapples for the necklace.
"Look now, mister, that's mine. I need it, okay? My boss is gonna be pissed as hell anyway, and if I show up without this…well, lets just say there'll be a certain vampire that's gonna have a whole new bag of problems when I get back," she tells me, trying to puff up and seem scary.
I'm a vampire. I know from scary. This is not it.
"Lady, buzz off. This bauble is ours now, and we don't need you around to help. Well, maybe we do," Buffy says, and in a blur of speed hooks the woman around the throat, and the demon chokes, thrashing desperately against a very strong and ticked off Slayer.
I tilt my head toward the exit, and Buffy leads the way, dragging the demon woman with her.
I follow, dangling the strange gem between my fingers, still feeling extremely wary around it.
After extracting the tiny bit of information that the demon's name is Anyanka, we truss her up carefully in the corner of the dead Watcher's apartment.
Buffy paces nervously as I read through the section she has found on Anyanka and her powers in the books on the table.
I stop reading, and regard her.
"Hey…you okay?" I ask, expecting her to jump down my throat or ignore me completely. I'm surprised when she sits stiffly on the couch, and a few tears squeeze out of her eyes. I put the book down, and tentatively sit next to her.
"What's up, Buffy?" I say gently, not wanting to raise her ire.
She shakes her head slowly. "I don't know. I know what I'm supposed to feel, and I know my duty. But from the moment I met you, things have changed. They've skewed, as you said earlier. And that's not right. Not for me. I'm the Slayer. I don't have time for feelings, or friends, or anything but the kill. And now I find myself suddenly interested in helping some strange man, a vampire at that, that I've known only for a few hours. I'm invested in figuring out what's wrong with the world, because according to him and some dead Watcher, this isn't the way it's supposed to be. Why the hell would I believe any of this? All that matters is the job. The mission. And you're screwing up my view of what's important. And damn it, I don't like it!"
This last bit is choked out harshly, and she puts her face in her hands, and sobs. I'm not sure what to say. I only know what I feel as well, and I know we have a connection. And obviously this world is wrong, otherwise we wouldn't have a mad as a hatter vengeance demon tied up in the corner cursing us.
"What are you afraid of? That the world will change? Or that it won't?"
She looks up at that.
"I honestly don't know which would be worse," she whispers, and I take her hand timidly, hoping that one of those crazy visions doesn't hit me this time.
It does.
I know this is hard…
What do you know about it? You're never gonna die.
Look…this can't…
I know. Ever be anything. For one thing, you're like two hundred and twenty four years older than I am.
I just gotta…I gotta walk away from this.
You play me like a fool. Come into my home. And then you attack my family…
Why not? I killed mine.
I killed their friends, and their friends children. For a hundred years I offered an ugly death to everyone I met. And I did it with a song in my heart….
That story I recognize. And I'm back in the present, gripping her hand, and she's staring at me, the tears still leaking slowly down her cheeks. One of them splashes on our joined hands, and I jump.
"I…uh…oh." She sways slightly, and I put my arm around her shoulders, to steady her. She leans into me, and we comfort each other, the knowledge of what we should do now sure in our minds, but not in our hearts.
We have to destroy the power center.
I know, and she knows, that the only way to give the future any kind of chance is to do this. But what if…
What if it isn't any better?
What if in the other world, the Master is still there? What if night still rules?
And what if I'm still the puppy?
I finish reading the passage on Anyanka, and what it means to destroy her power center. She is flailing and screaming now, knowing what we are about to do. She can't do anything but flail and scream, due to the fact that her power is literally in my hands.
Buffy and I clear the Watcher's kitchen table, and set the necklace in the middle of it, and I locate a hardy rock outside the front door.
There's nothing left now but to do it.
My hands heft the rock, and I hold it over the gem.
I can't seem to move.
Buffy puts her hand on my arm suddenly, and I turn to her, the stone in my hand as heavy as lead, as dense as the dark world we're about to destroy.
"Angel, I…" she starts, and then smiles wryly.
"I don't have the strength right now to say what needs to be said," she tells me, then resolutely straightens her back. She stands next to me, and meets my gaze.
"Just finish it."
I smile at her as well, and in that moment, a thousand possibilities open before us. A thousand Angel's, and a thousand Buffy's wait silently to have their chance. To follow their own lines of fate.
And I'll be damned if I'm gonna keep it from them.
I lean over her quickly and press my lips to hers. A momentary dizzyness, then I pull back.
"Thanks for opening the door," I tell her, and she gives me a quizzical look.
"What door?" she says.
"All of them," I tell her, and as Anyanka screams out for pity one last time, I smash the rock in my hands onto the blue gem on the little table in front of us, squeezing my eyes shut as I do so.
The light! So bright… Is it the sun again at last?
In one of many possible timelines, Buffy sits with her friends outside at school, absentmindedly fingering the silver cross she wears on a chain around her neck.
A thought of Angel fills her mind unbidden, and she shivers slightly at the memory.
In a cavernous mansion on Crawford street a few miles away, a dark haired vampire stirs in his sleep, the vision of a blonde warrior woman haunting his dreams. He sighs, and rolls over, pulling the covers over his head, blocking out the few stray filtered rays of sun that his eyes can barely discern in the gloom.
A silver rings glints on the table beside him.
And in the courtyard of a small apartment complex, now empty of it's working inhabitants, a former demon woman stands in the gloom, unable to move or to think at all, except for two words.
Damn them.
Finis.
