Chapter 15-A Truce

-Angel-

Buffy and Willow are up to something. They've been behind closed doors whispering for at least an hour now. They won't tell me what's going on, only that I can't leave the mansion. So, I'm sitting in here by the fireplace brooding and reading. I don't even notice that someone is coming up the pathway until the heavy door opens a crack and Xander steps inside. I look up.

"Buffy and Willow are holed up in the bedroom. They can't possibly be much longer though." I comment and go back to the pretense of reading.

Xander stands in the center of the main room uncomfortably; his hands are in his pockets. "Trust me, they can."

Within seconds, Willow and Buffy emerge from the bedroom.

"Hi Xander. Buffy and I are going to the mall. You and Angel are going to stay here and talk out your differences." Willow says.

Xander and I both are openly staring at the girls. I'm not sure what they wish to accomplish other then one of us getting killed.

"Bye, see you later, no sharp wooden things, no maiming." Buffy says in a jumble of words as she and Willow rush out the door into the dusk.

Xander and I both stand in the silence, still in disbelief that the girls have left us here alone. I speak first.

"Would you like some coffee or tea? I don't have a lot in the way of food or beverages."

"Nah, this really isn't a social call." Xander glares at me.

"You know, Xander, I'm not sure what your problem is. I know you used to have this thing for Buffy and I understood it when you were back in high school, but you are engaged to Anya. So why do you still have this intense hatred for me?"

"How dare you even ask such a question?" Xander explodes. "Do you know how many times Willow and I have been there when Buffy cried over you? I stopped counting when the numbers got up there somewhere with the number of times Giles has been knocked unconscious."

"I can't change the past. I know I've hurt Buffy a lot. I know I've made her cry and if I could take back every single one of those tears I would. I've never wanted anything but happiness for Buffy."

"So you turn her into a monster? The thought makes me want to puke." Xander threw back.

"And the thought of her lying in the ground makes you feel better?" I step toward him unconsciously, fighting to control my anger.

"Of course not! Buffy never wanted this. She didn't want to be confined to a life indoors, out of the sun. She didn't want to drink blood to exist. You did all of this to her." Xander says.

"And you don't think that guilt hasn't hounded me since the second I made that decision. I left Sunnydale so she could have a life in the light. I know exactly what I condemned her to. I live it every day and it's not what I wanted for her, but in a moment of weakness, while she lay dying in my arms, I made a wrong decision and I will feel guilty about that for longer then you can even imagine, boy." I yell at him.

"Good. I hope it kills you. I hope it rots you from the inside out." I've rarely seen Xander filled with as much rage and hate, even toward me.

"Do you want to stake me? Will that make you feel better? Then maybe you'd like to stake Buffy, release her soul to wherever it was supposed to go when she jumped from that tower." I hold my arms out, exposing my chest, knowing that the moment the boy picks up a stake I can be behind him with said stake at his throat before he knows what's happening.

"I don't know what Buffy and Willow thought we'd accomplish here, but it's not happening." Xander turns away disgusted.

"What Buffy wanted was for us to reach a point where we can at least be civil. I'm going to be in her life now, whether you like it or not. She'd like to keep you, one of her best friends in that same life. We're tearing her to pieces with all the snipping and hateful words. So let's get it over right now. You want to beat the hell out of me? Make me pay for my past sins, so we can move on. Go ahead."

I hadn't expected him to actually take me up on my offer. The kid has a hard right hook, better then I would have given him credit for. I didn't flinch. I didn't step back with the punch. I wouldn't' give him the satisfaction. I simply wiped the blood from my lip and sneered at him. "Better?"

The punch seems to have taken some of the anger out of him. "I'll stop with all the comments. I don't like you, I'll never like you and so help me if you hurt her again, I will kill you. I may not be able to take you one on one, but you sleep and I don't recall needing an invitation to walk in here." Xander looked me in the eye as he threatened me.

"Fair enough."

We call a truce of sorts. We're sitting on opposite ends of the couch, not looking at each other when Buffy and Willow come back in.

"Did you boys make up?" Willow asks.

For some reason, Faith's expression of five by five comes to mind. "We're okay where we're at."

"Good, 'cause there will be a delivery man from the electronics store here in a few minutes. We bought a TV, a DVD player and a movie." Buffy says brightly, holding a garish looking DVD case with the title 'From Dusk 'til Dawn'

I look at her like she's grown a tail, or lost her mind. I'm going with the latter. "Horror movies? We're going to watch horror movies?" I manage to say.

"Yeah. Will, Xan and I used to watch them after weekend patrols." She turns to look at Willow. "We haven't done the patrol thing; maybe we should do the patrol thing first."

"Giles says vamp activity is way down. It's to be expected after a disruption of power like Glory's or something like that. Anyway, it equals no monsters to patrol for."

"Oh, goody, a monster free night, except for well, Me, Angel and the movie monsters. Will, why don't you call the rest of the gang, and Dawn. Invite them over, tell them to bring popcorn. Xander and I need to talk." Buffy says all this without missing a beat. I almost think she's handling this better then I am, except her sobs wake me up in the middle of the night.

She grabs Xander by the wrist and pulls him into the bedroom. She shuts the door behind them. I'm left with Willow and the impending arrival of delivery men.

-Buffy-

I close the door behind us. Xander stands with his back to me.

"Ok, so I know we've got some problems. I don't want things to stay this way between us Xander. You and Willow are my best friends, my first friends when I came to Sunnydale."

"I'm sorry, Buff. I don't mean to make this harder on you. I just can't help it." Xander says.

"Xander, I'll tell you like I told Willow. I'm me inside. It doesn't matter that I don't have a heartbeat or breath. I'm still the same Buffy I always was. I can't change what I've become. If I could undo it I would and I know Angel would too."

"Buffy, it's not you I have a problem with. I mean yeah it's hard to imagine you a vampire. They are the bad guys, traditionally and you're Super girl vampire slayer. You know I've always had a hard time with Dea- Angel. What he's done to you just makes it worse."

"I love him. I've loved him since I first set eyes on him. I can't change that, Xander, anymore then I can change what I've become. And that's one thing I don't want to change. Angel has always been my rock. When everything else is chaotic around me, Angel is the calm center of the storm. I could go on with life and I could handle the things it threw at me, because I knew if I really needed Angel, he'd be there. I need my friends too. You guys are a big part of what makes me, me. I want you to continue to be my best friend. You have to accept that Angel is a part of my life though. Can you do that?" I ask.

"I can be civil, for your sake." He says. His back is still to me.

"Xander, turn around, look at me."

He does. I let my vamp face slip into place. "Can you accept that this is what I am now?" I revert back to my human face. He's got to see that while I may be a vampire, thanks to Willow I'm still me.

He shudders visibly and that's okay. It's a lot to handle. I freaked out the first time I saw Angel's vamp face. Eventually I stopped seeing vamp face or human face and just saw Angel. I hope one day my friends can do the same.

"I can try. I don't want to lose my best friend. It nearly killed me to see you jump from that tower, even though I knew you were saving Dawnie's life." Xander says honestly.

"If it hadn't been for Angel, it would have killed me." I say simply.

"He did kill you, Buffy. You're a walking corpse."

"No, Angel didn't kill me. The jump from that 50 story tower did. Angel just found a way to keep my soul on this earth, the only way he knew how." He's got to stop looking at Angel as the reason I died.

Xander looks up from the ground and sniffs the air. "Is that popcorn I smell?"

I grin. "Dawn, Tara and Anya must be here. It's Monster Movie Madness time."