Chapter 29

A/N This section is rated R for sexual situations. It's my first love scene, so bear with me.

-Buffy-

I thought we were going to get out of the building without a fight. I guess Jeeves woke up and alerted the entire house of our midnight visit. We're at the foot of the second story stairs when pain rips through my left shoulder, just above the heart. I start to fall to my knees and catch myself on the banister. If I fall, Angel will panic and he'll end up hurt. I shake my head and vamp out, pushing the pain away. I grab the first person I see by the throat and throw him over the banister. He lands with a scream on the floor below. I can see Angel tearing into a small group of council members out of the corner of my eye. He looks more animal then person. He sounds that way too.

I twist a woman's arm behind her back and hear a pop as her shoulder dislocates. I have to remind myself these are humans. I don't really want to kill them. I shove the woman into a wall and hope she'll stay down. Angel and I are slowly fighting our way to the front door. I see Angel smash a man's head into the wall. The expensive wood paneling cracks and he slides down it. I catch a woman under the jaw with a hard right hook. She goes down and I jump over her. I'm close enough to reach the front door now. I fling it open and dart through it. Angel is right on my heels. We run all the way back to the bed and breakfast we're staying in. At Angel's insistence we camp down in the bomb shelter. It's not until we're in the shelter that he has a chance to panic over the crossbow bolt still sticking though my shoulder. He's got the first aid kit out, 2 different kinds of antibiotic cream, rubbing alcohol, peroxide and big square pieces of gauze.

"I've got to push this all the way though, Buffy. If I pull it out the barb on the end is going to tear you up." He's got tears in his eyes at the thought of hurting me.

I wrap my fingers around the steel frame of the bed I'm sitting on. "Ok. Just do it fast." I will myself not to cry out, not to make this any harder on him then it has to be.

"On three, 1-"

The pain is enough to bring tears to my eyes and make me wince. God I don't think it hurt this much getting shot. I bite through my lip and take a deep breath when he finally has it out. "I knew you were going to do that." I smile wryly at him.

"A long time ago a little blond did that to me." He says softly, undoubtedly remembering when Faith shot him with a poisoned arrow.

"I remember." I touch his face gently. Concern is etched all over it while he dabs the wound with alcohol and peroxide.

"I'm lucky those guys weren't as good a shot as Wesley." He says. I can see he's fighting breaking down. He knows how close the bolt came to my heart, mere centimeters.

"I'll be sore for a little while, Angel, but it will be fine." He wraps his arms around my waist and buries his head in my stomach. My fingers tangle in his hair automatically. We sit like this for a long while. Time holds no meaning when I'm touching my Angel. It never has.

"Do you think they'll come after us?" I finally ask.

Angel looks up at me. "No, not after Smythe talks to them."

"What did you tell him?" I ask.

Angel lays his head on my chest, over my unbeating heart. "I just told him that if anyone injured my mate they'd be sorry."

His words manage to render me speechless, his mate. We can't even- does it really matter though? Does the fact that we can't have sex make me any less his? No, it never has, just like sex with Riley didn't make me his. I lower my face to the crown of his head. I wrap my legs around his torso. I don't know where he ends and I begin. I realize with this man wrapped around me like this, it doesn't matter if I have a heartbeat, or if I breathe. This is when I'm truly alive, this has always been the only time I was truly alive. Besides what's so bad about forever, as long as I get to spend it with him?

*

Angel and I stay in London for almost a week. It's nice to be away with him somewhere. Nice that no one knows we're vampires. We look like any other couple walking through London, our arms wrapped around each other's waists. It's odd. I feel more like a normal girl right now then I ever have.

"Do you think they have evening tours of the Tower of London?" I ask.

Angel winces. "They have midnight tours, I think. Are you sure you want to go there?"

"Yeah. Isn't that where Henry the eighth locked up all his wives?" I vaguely remember this from my history classes. It must have been a slow apocalypse week in Sunnydale when we studied that.

"Among others. It's really, well it's not that great, Buffy."

I wrinkle my nose and look up at him. "You've been on a Tower of London tour?"

"Not exactly." He hedges.

It takes me a moment to catch up, I am blond after all. "You were locked up in the Tower of London?"

"For a little while." He shrugs, trying to make light of it.

"What did you do?" I ask.

"It was-I was accused of murder."

"You ate the King of England?"

Angel laughs. "No, a minor duchess."

"Oh, well then why weren't you beheaded then, instead of here with me? Not that I'm complaining, mind you."

"Darla convinced the guards to let me out." He says.

I wrinkle my nose. I guess no one likes to hear about their boyfriends old flames, even when they do come in handy with the life saving from time to time. Actually, I have a lot to be thankful to Darla for, without her I would have never known Angel. He would be dust in his grave having lived a life without me and died without me long before I was ever even born. It makes me linger a bit too long on the concepts of fate and destiny.

"You look serious. What are you pondering?" Angel asks me as we walk down a crooked street.

I look up at him and smile. "Maybe everything we do and everyone we meet is part of someone's bigger plan."

He looks confused, as if he caught the end of a movie but not the beginning or the middle. In a way I guess he has.

"What if Darla had never turned you?" I ask in an attempt to explain.

He shrugs. "I don't know. I guess eventually I would have taken over my father's business, married, had kids, or I might have died of syphilis. Where's this leading?"

"I was just thinking I have her to thank for meeting you. We already know the powers handpicked you to help me. Maybe they also predestined Darla to turn you, so you'd be there when I needed you. It makes the whole thing of us fighting our relationship a little pointless, don't you think?"

"When you put it like that, it does. I'm glad we decided to stop fighting it. Come on, I'm going to introduce you to a real English pub."

We walk into the next tavern he deems suitable. Angel orders me a white wine and him a Guinness, which he drank at room temperature.

"Ok not only does that look like soup in a glass, how can you drink it warm?" I eye his beer suspiciously.

He chuckles. "That's how you're supposed to drink Guinness. They only serve it cold in America."

Sometime during the night we progress to Irish whiskey. Angel laughs at the faces I make drinking it. I stick my tongue out at him.

"You know, I can think of better uses for that tongue." He says pulling me closer for a kiss.

"Mmm, I like the uses you think of. You'll have to show me more."

In answer he grins and kisses me harder. He dips his head and runs his tongue along the column of my throat. I growl and tug him closer. He buys me another Irish whiskey. The night gets fuzzier with each glass. I do remember Angel and me walking back to the bed and breakfast leaning on each other and laughing each time one of us stumbled, which was pretty often.

We stumble down the stairs, giggling like kids, into the bomb shelter. Angel closes the door behind me and traps me against it. I rest my hands on his shoulders. He leans in to kiss me and he tastes like whiskey, but for some reason on him it tastes good. I arch up into the kiss, wanting more, needing more. We've been flirting with this all night long. I wind my fingers in his hair, tugging him closer. I'm glad I don't need to breathe because I couldn't if I had to.

"God, Buffy, want you, need you." Angel groans against my mouth.

I moan something incoherent back and start fumbling with his shirt. Buttons are entirely too uncooperative. To hell with it, I rip his shirt, buttons ping as they hit the concrete floor. My hands are all over him. He feels like cool marble. I push back against him. We shuffle across the floor all lips and hands. Somehow Angel turns me around and backs me against the bed. He wraps his arms around me and pushes just hard enough to topple us both onto the bed. Angel pushes my sweater up over my head. His fingers dance over my breasts. I arch up into him. Some part of my brain whispers stop, but it's severely numbed by whiskey. Angel fumbles with button on my jeans. It's nice to know I'm not the only one with whiskey fingers. My jeans go the way of my sweater. I tug at Angel's pants. He's got entirely too many clothes on. I'm panting against his neck. It's so hot, how can I be hot? His skin feels cool next to mine and I need to feel every inch of him next to me. He rises up on one knee and manages to slip his pants off. I pull him back down to me. Every cell in my body screams want, need, more, now.
I wrap my legs around his hips and pull him closer and then he's inside of me and I'm complete.

"Need you, love you so much, Buffy." He gasps.

"Hurts without you," I whisper.

"So much," he agrees.

I don't know where the tears come from. I know I can't stop them. He seems to understand. He kisses them away and then returns his mouth to mine. His lips taste like salt. He stills, resting his forehead against mine. We stay like that for several minutes. Neither of us pretends to breathe. We don't do anything but appreciate this sacred moment for what it is. We are one being, one spirit, one soul and then as if he can not stand it anymore, he begins to move inside of me again. I match his rise and fall with my own. The sheer pleasure crashes over me and I'm adrift in it. The only thing tethering me to this plane is the feel of Angel next to me.