Stumble Into Grace- Chapter 24
-Buffy-
I'm almost asleep when there is a frantic knocking on the door. I leap out of bed and throw on sweats. Angel wakes up also. He begins to get dressed. I run to the door, knowing it will take him longer to get in here. I glance out the peephole but can't see anyone. There is another softer knock down low, on the bottom part of the door. I throw it open. Melanie is pulled into a ball, sitting up against the door. I can see blood pooling underneath her.
"Melanie, sweetie, what happened?" I ask as I slip an arm around her waist. She struggles weakly to her feet and we walk slowly over to the couch. She's covered in blood and there's a vamp bite on her neck. I search for her pulse on her wrist. You'd think I could find these things quicker. Angel rolls up beside me and touches his finger to the pulse in her neck.
"Get her to the hospital now. Her pulse is weak, really weak. I'll slow you down to much. I'll get a cab and meet you there." Angel says.
I trust him. He spent a century knowing just how weak a person's pulse could get before they died.
Angel scoops her up in his arms and settles her on his lap. Somehow, even at six foot two, Melanie looks like a little girl in his arms, a very sick little girl. Angel takes her to our car. I take her from him and settle her as gently as I can in the front seat.
"Go, hurry. She doesn't have a lot of time. I'll be there as soon as I can." Angel says.
I nod and kiss him quickly on the forehead. The tires squeal as I pull out of the parking garage. I make it to the hospital in record time and squeal up to the emergency room entrance. Thank God for attentive orderlies and nurses. Some one has a gurney out there even as I open the passenger door.
"What happened?" one of the nurses asks.
"I don't know. She just showed up at my apartment like this." I answer. "She's lost a lot of blood. She needs a transfusion now."
The nurse nods. "We'll take care of her."
The gurney is rushed off to another area of the hospital. I go to the pay phones and call Giles and Willow. I sit back down to wait for the doctors or someone to come give me a report on Melanie. Angel shows up shortly afterwards. I crawl into his lap and collapse against him. I don't care that the entire emergency room is watching me. I need Angel right now and I know he needs me.
"I don't know anything yet. They took her. I told them she needed blood." I say.
"Did she tell you what happened?" Angel asks.
I shake my head. "She lost consciousness on the way over here. I figured there would be time for that when she started feeling better."
"If she does." Angel says quietly.
"She's going to be okay, Angel. She's a slayer. We got her here in time. I think the cuts were already starting to heal up. She just needs blood. Remember, I was okay. She will be too. This is a vamp bite and some cuts and bruises, nothing more." I try to reassure him. I'm not sure myself but the words sound good.
He just nods. He's trying hard to control his emotions. I can see them rolling over and over in his eyes. I rest my hand against his cheek and kiss him softly. I know how much he's hurting. Losing a slayer is horrible. There's no word for what I feel when one of my slayers die. To Angel, Melanie is his slayer because he's her watcher. To me, they are all my slayers, because I made the decision to make them slayers.
I jump up when a doctor walks into the emergency waiting room.
"Melanie Winters?" The doctor asks looking around for someone.
"That's us; I mean we're with her." I say.
"If you'll come with me. " He beckons.
I follow him, Angel trails behind me. He takes us to a private room. Melanie is lying on the bed looking pale and small. I am compelled to walk over and smooth a lock of her long brown hair away from her face. There's a large bandage over her neck.
"What happened to her?" The doctor asked.
I shake my head. "I don't know. She showed up at our door like this."
"Where are her parents? Neither of you are old enough." The doctor says.
I shake my head. "No. Her parents live in Texas. Her guardian will be here in a little bit. We're friends."
The doctor nods. "I'll wait to speak with her guardian then."
"No, please. He was my guardian when I was younger too. Melanie is like a sister. We need to know if she's going to be okay." I say.
The doctor sighs and looks from Angel to me. "She's going to be fine. I don't know when this happened but she was already starting to heal when I looked at her. We gave her a transfusion. There were long shallow cuts on her ribs and waist and then the puncture wounds in her neck. It almost looks like someone wanted to bleed her, slowly. She's going to be okay though. I'll keep her over night and see how she is in the morning." The doctor says.
"Thank you." I say.
The doctor nods and leaves the room. Angel wheels his chair next to the bed. I crawl back into his lap and bury my nose in the crook of his neck. I take a deep breath of him. The smell of Angel always soothes me. It surrounds me and cushions me from the outside world.
"She's going to be okay." He says, needing to hear it as much as say it.
I nod. "She is. When she wakes up we'll find out what did this to her and I will kill it."
"We should have two active slayers here." Angel says.
I look at him. "Hello, slayer sitting in your lap."
"You've been so busy taking care of me, you haven't been patrolling."
"Angel, I thought Melanie could handle herself. She's damn good. I don't know what took her down but it had to be something big. There was no way to predict this." I can feel the guilt piling itself on my shoulders. Angel is right. I should have been patrolling with Melanie. I've become complacent in my "normal" life. I shouldn't have let her go out alone. She's good but she's green. She's been a slayer a little over a year. I thought she'd be okay because her track record is better then mine was then. I mean she hasn't died or put the world in peril. By the time I was seventeen I'd died once and unleashed a monster that wanted to suck the world into hell, so her track record is considerably better. That's no excuse. She's still young. She's still new to her power.
"Buffy, it's not your fault." Angel says almost as if he can read my thoughts.
"No, you're right. I should have been patrolling with her. I'm a slayer. I will be a slayer until the day I die. With all the new slayers I guess I let my self think I could stop being a slayer. I should have been patrolling with her." I say.
"Buffy, I didn't mean that. I meant maybe we should station two slayers here, neither of them being you. You deserve a normal life, you deserve of life of not being the slayer. You earned it. I should have suggested to Giles that we bring someone else in earlier." H e says.
"Okay, you know this blame a palooza is not getting us anywhere. Giles will be here any minute. We need to figure out who did this. Hopefully Melanie will wake up soon. I don't remember how long I was out, a couple of hours at least." I say.
Angel nods. I sigh and relax into him. His arms go around my waist. He rests his head on the crown of mine. I close my eyes and take deep even breaths. I fall into the easy rise and fall of Angel's chest, or he falls into mine. I'm not sure which. When Angel and I are this close his and mine get all mixed up.
I wake up with a yawn and then a start as I remember where I am. I'm still sitting on Angel's lap. I wake him up when I start. I glance over at Melanie's bed. She smiles at me. She still looks pale and wan but definitely more herself.
"Morning," she says.
I smile at her. "When did you wake up?"
She shrugs. "A couple of hours ago. Giles was in here. I think he went to get tea or something. He wanted to wake you two. I told him to let you sleep."
"Thank you." I say.
"How do you feel?" Angel asks. His voice still has that raw, hoarse sound to it that it always has when he first wakes up. I love that sound.
"Okay. I mean not ready to go kick that guy's ass, but okay." She says.
"What happened, Melanie?" I ask.
"Let's wait until Giles gets back. I made him wait until you guys woke up." She says.
I lean over the bed and lift the edge of the bandage covering the vamp bite. It's a shallow bite, it wasn't meant to drain her. It's beginning to heal.
"Now I'll have a scar like yours." Melanie says looking at my exposed collarbone and Angel's mark there.
I shake my head. "No, yours is shallow. Most vamp bites don't scar."
"Then why did yours? I mean obviously it wasn't that bad. You lived." Melanie says.
Angel answers for me, and much more succulently then I could have. "Buffy's bite is a mark, a brand. It tells the vampire world that she belongs to another vampire."
Melanie's eyes widen in understanding. "You?" She asks looking at Angel.
He nods.
"Wow, so were you evil?" Melanie asks.
"No, he was poisoned. Only the blood of a slayer would cure it." I say.
"So why the mark and not just a bite like mine?" Melanie asks.
"She's mine. She's always been mine, she'll always be mine. I wanted everyone to know that." Angel answers. It's funny. It sounds over simplified, but it's not. When it comes to Angel and I, things are that simple.
Giles saves us from further questioning by walking in the room with tea.
"Good, you two are awake. Melanie wouldn't let me wake you up." Giles says.
"Good morning to you too, Giles. I slept great. Thanks for asking." I tease him.
"I'm-ah- pleased you slept well." Giles says clearing his throat.
"Watcher lesson number one." I grin and say to Angel.
Giles just gives me that look, the one I've long come to think of as my look, since I'm the only one that ever garners that look.
"If we could move on then, what happened last night?" Giles turns his attention to Melanie.
Melanie scrunges down in her bed and manages to look like a child again. Angel scoots us both closer and takes her hand in his. She smiles at him. He's going to make a good watcher. I taught him a long time ago that slayers need love too, just not the same love that I get. That's Buffy love, not slayer love. Just so we're clear.
"I was out patrolling kind of near Buffy and Angel's place, in the alleys and stuff near some of the nightclubs around Live Oak. Anyway, this vamp sneaks up on me. I didn't even feel him. Usually my slayer sense goes insane when there's a vamp anywhere in the area."
I pout. "Not fair. I think mine's broken."
Angel grins at me.
"You didn't get the slayer sense?" Melanie asks.
"Sort of. I don't feel vamps. I mean I get bad vibes from places and situations but the only vamp I could ever feel was Angel." I say.
"One of these days, when the Hell mouth isn't spitting out something, I want to hear this whole story." Melanie says.
"Yes, so the vampire snuck up on you." Giles prods Melanie. I grin. Giles used to have to do the same thing to me.
"Oh, yeah, he snuck up on me. He had some flunkies standing at the front of the alley so no one would barge in. He said he wanted to talk. He had a message for me to deliver." Melanie says.
"What did this vampire look like?" Giles asks.
"Wrinkled, I mean vamp faces are never pretty but this guy was ugly. He looked old, like those vamps that get all ugly with time, almost like the picture of that guy with the fruit punch mouth, but not that ugly. He was tall and kind of skinny, dark hair, dark complected skin, I think. He had an accent maybe French or Italian? I'm not sure. He got out a knife and put a couple of cuts on my sides. He said he didn't want to kill me. He wanted to find Angelus' slayer. I told him he was looking at her but he argued with me."
I shake my head. "No he was looking for me. Remember the scar? He was looking for me. What did he say besides that?"
"Nothing, he just said to get the message out. He was looking for Angelus' slayer. He didn't say where to meet him or anything at all." Melanie says.
"I'm betting he'll find me. I'm going to make myself easy to find. You said you were patrolling the night clubs near Live Oak?" I say.
Melanie nods.
"Angel, if they let Melanie out you take her to the magic shop. You and Giles can start some research. I'm going to patrol the area Melanie found this guy in last night, see what I can dig up."
"Buffy, I don't like the idea of you going out there by your self." Angel says.
"Angel, I'm a big girl. This guy can't be worse then any of the others I've faced. I'll be careful. I'll run if I need to, but we've got to find out what he wants with me." I say.
-Angel-
Melanie reminds me of Buffy when it comes to research. She got bored a long time ago and is in the training room practicing her meditation. I refuse to allow her to do anything physical for at least another day.
Willow slams a book shut. "I'm not finding anything. I don't even know what we're looking for."
"A vampire, possibly Italian, old, Melanie is a good slayer. She would have been able to take down anything less then 100 years old." Giles says.
"That narrows it down. Most vampires don't live that long. They get dusted by the slayer or they just get stupid." I say. There has to be something. I close my eyes and sift through my memories.
"Wait a minute. Willow look in the books about the order of Aurelius." I say.
"The order of Aurelius? I thought they were all but disbanded when Buffy turned the Master's bones to dust." Oz says.
"Technically, yes. I hadn't thought of it before because the Master's bloodline ends in Spike, unless he's turned someone I don't know about. There was one though, I never met him. He was an Italian. I was supposed to be the Master's right hand when he took things over. If this guy is thinking about reforming the order of Aurelius and he's been living in a box for the last several years, he could be looking for Angelus." I say.
"Do you remember his name?" Giles asks.
I nod. "Morte Viziosa, it means-"
"Vicious Death." Giles finishes.
-Buffy-
I'm almost asleep when there is a frantic knocking on the door. I leap out of bed and throw on sweats. Angel wakes up also. He begins to get dressed. I run to the door, knowing it will take him longer to get in here. I glance out the peephole but can't see anyone. There is another softer knock down low, on the bottom part of the door. I throw it open. Melanie is pulled into a ball, sitting up against the door. I can see blood pooling underneath her.
"Melanie, sweetie, what happened?" I ask as I slip an arm around her waist. She struggles weakly to her feet and we walk slowly over to the couch. She's covered in blood and there's a vamp bite on her neck. I search for her pulse on her wrist. You'd think I could find these things quicker. Angel rolls up beside me and touches his finger to the pulse in her neck.
"Get her to the hospital now. Her pulse is weak, really weak. I'll slow you down to much. I'll get a cab and meet you there." Angel says.
I trust him. He spent a century knowing just how weak a person's pulse could get before they died.
Angel scoops her up in his arms and settles her on his lap. Somehow, even at six foot two, Melanie looks like a little girl in his arms, a very sick little girl. Angel takes her to our car. I take her from him and settle her as gently as I can in the front seat.
"Go, hurry. She doesn't have a lot of time. I'll be there as soon as I can." Angel says.
I nod and kiss him quickly on the forehead. The tires squeal as I pull out of the parking garage. I make it to the hospital in record time and squeal up to the emergency room entrance. Thank God for attentive orderlies and nurses. Some one has a gurney out there even as I open the passenger door.
"What happened?" one of the nurses asks.
"I don't know. She just showed up at my apartment like this." I answer. "She's lost a lot of blood. She needs a transfusion now."
The nurse nods. "We'll take care of her."
The gurney is rushed off to another area of the hospital. I go to the pay phones and call Giles and Willow. I sit back down to wait for the doctors or someone to come give me a report on Melanie. Angel shows up shortly afterwards. I crawl into his lap and collapse against him. I don't care that the entire emergency room is watching me. I need Angel right now and I know he needs me.
"I don't know anything yet. They took her. I told them she needed blood." I say.
"Did she tell you what happened?" Angel asks.
I shake my head. "She lost consciousness on the way over here. I figured there would be time for that when she started feeling better."
"If she does." Angel says quietly.
"She's going to be okay, Angel. She's a slayer. We got her here in time. I think the cuts were already starting to heal up. She just needs blood. Remember, I was okay. She will be too. This is a vamp bite and some cuts and bruises, nothing more." I try to reassure him. I'm not sure myself but the words sound good.
He just nods. He's trying hard to control his emotions. I can see them rolling over and over in his eyes. I rest my hand against his cheek and kiss him softly. I know how much he's hurting. Losing a slayer is horrible. There's no word for what I feel when one of my slayers die. To Angel, Melanie is his slayer because he's her watcher. To me, they are all my slayers, because I made the decision to make them slayers.
I jump up when a doctor walks into the emergency waiting room.
"Melanie Winters?" The doctor asks looking around for someone.
"That's us; I mean we're with her." I say.
"If you'll come with me. " He beckons.
I follow him, Angel trails behind me. He takes us to a private room. Melanie is lying on the bed looking pale and small. I am compelled to walk over and smooth a lock of her long brown hair away from her face. There's a large bandage over her neck.
"What happened to her?" The doctor asked.
I shake my head. "I don't know. She showed up at our door like this."
"Where are her parents? Neither of you are old enough." The doctor says.
I shake my head. "No. Her parents live in Texas. Her guardian will be here in a little bit. We're friends."
The doctor nods. "I'll wait to speak with her guardian then."
"No, please. He was my guardian when I was younger too. Melanie is like a sister. We need to know if she's going to be okay." I say.
The doctor sighs and looks from Angel to me. "She's going to be fine. I don't know when this happened but she was already starting to heal when I looked at her. We gave her a transfusion. There were long shallow cuts on her ribs and waist and then the puncture wounds in her neck. It almost looks like someone wanted to bleed her, slowly. She's going to be okay though. I'll keep her over night and see how she is in the morning." The doctor says.
"Thank you." I say.
The doctor nods and leaves the room. Angel wheels his chair next to the bed. I crawl back into his lap and bury my nose in the crook of his neck. I take a deep breath of him. The smell of Angel always soothes me. It surrounds me and cushions me from the outside world.
"She's going to be okay." He says, needing to hear it as much as say it.
I nod. "She is. When she wakes up we'll find out what did this to her and I will kill it."
"We should have two active slayers here." Angel says.
I look at him. "Hello, slayer sitting in your lap."
"You've been so busy taking care of me, you haven't been patrolling."
"Angel, I thought Melanie could handle herself. She's damn good. I don't know what took her down but it had to be something big. There was no way to predict this." I can feel the guilt piling itself on my shoulders. Angel is right. I should have been patrolling with Melanie. I've become complacent in my "normal" life. I shouldn't have let her go out alone. She's good but she's green. She's been a slayer a little over a year. I thought she'd be okay because her track record is better then mine was then. I mean she hasn't died or put the world in peril. By the time I was seventeen I'd died once and unleashed a monster that wanted to suck the world into hell, so her track record is considerably better. That's no excuse. She's still young. She's still new to her power.
"Buffy, it's not your fault." Angel says almost as if he can read my thoughts.
"No, you're right. I should have been patrolling with her. I'm a slayer. I will be a slayer until the day I die. With all the new slayers I guess I let my self think I could stop being a slayer. I should have been patrolling with her." I say.
"Buffy, I didn't mean that. I meant maybe we should station two slayers here, neither of them being you. You deserve a normal life, you deserve of life of not being the slayer. You earned it. I should have suggested to Giles that we bring someone else in earlier." H e says.
"Okay, you know this blame a palooza is not getting us anywhere. Giles will be here any minute. We need to figure out who did this. Hopefully Melanie will wake up soon. I don't remember how long I was out, a couple of hours at least." I say.
Angel nods. I sigh and relax into him. His arms go around my waist. He rests his head on the crown of mine. I close my eyes and take deep even breaths. I fall into the easy rise and fall of Angel's chest, or he falls into mine. I'm not sure which. When Angel and I are this close his and mine get all mixed up.
I wake up with a yawn and then a start as I remember where I am. I'm still sitting on Angel's lap. I wake him up when I start. I glance over at Melanie's bed. She smiles at me. She still looks pale and wan but definitely more herself.
"Morning," she says.
I smile at her. "When did you wake up?"
She shrugs. "A couple of hours ago. Giles was in here. I think he went to get tea or something. He wanted to wake you two. I told him to let you sleep."
"Thank you." I say.
"How do you feel?" Angel asks. His voice still has that raw, hoarse sound to it that it always has when he first wakes up. I love that sound.
"Okay. I mean not ready to go kick that guy's ass, but okay." She says.
"What happened, Melanie?" I ask.
"Let's wait until Giles gets back. I made him wait until you guys woke up." She says.
I lean over the bed and lift the edge of the bandage covering the vamp bite. It's a shallow bite, it wasn't meant to drain her. It's beginning to heal.
"Now I'll have a scar like yours." Melanie says looking at my exposed collarbone and Angel's mark there.
I shake my head. "No, yours is shallow. Most vamp bites don't scar."
"Then why did yours? I mean obviously it wasn't that bad. You lived." Melanie says.
Angel answers for me, and much more succulently then I could have. "Buffy's bite is a mark, a brand. It tells the vampire world that she belongs to another vampire."
Melanie's eyes widen in understanding. "You?" She asks looking at Angel.
He nods.
"Wow, so were you evil?" Melanie asks.
"No, he was poisoned. Only the blood of a slayer would cure it." I say.
"So why the mark and not just a bite like mine?" Melanie asks.
"She's mine. She's always been mine, she'll always be mine. I wanted everyone to know that." Angel answers. It's funny. It sounds over simplified, but it's not. When it comes to Angel and I, things are that simple.
Giles saves us from further questioning by walking in the room with tea.
"Good, you two are awake. Melanie wouldn't let me wake you up." Giles says.
"Good morning to you too, Giles. I slept great. Thanks for asking." I tease him.
"I'm-ah- pleased you slept well." Giles says clearing his throat.
"Watcher lesson number one." I grin and say to Angel.
Giles just gives me that look, the one I've long come to think of as my look, since I'm the only one that ever garners that look.
"If we could move on then, what happened last night?" Giles turns his attention to Melanie.
Melanie scrunges down in her bed and manages to look like a child again. Angel scoots us both closer and takes her hand in his. She smiles at him. He's going to make a good watcher. I taught him a long time ago that slayers need love too, just not the same love that I get. That's Buffy love, not slayer love. Just so we're clear.
"I was out patrolling kind of near Buffy and Angel's place, in the alleys and stuff near some of the nightclubs around Live Oak. Anyway, this vamp sneaks up on me. I didn't even feel him. Usually my slayer sense goes insane when there's a vamp anywhere in the area."
I pout. "Not fair. I think mine's broken."
Angel grins at me.
"You didn't get the slayer sense?" Melanie asks.
"Sort of. I don't feel vamps. I mean I get bad vibes from places and situations but the only vamp I could ever feel was Angel." I say.
"One of these days, when the Hell mouth isn't spitting out something, I want to hear this whole story." Melanie says.
"Yes, so the vampire snuck up on you." Giles prods Melanie. I grin. Giles used to have to do the same thing to me.
"Oh, yeah, he snuck up on me. He had some flunkies standing at the front of the alley so no one would barge in. He said he wanted to talk. He had a message for me to deliver." Melanie says.
"What did this vampire look like?" Giles asks.
"Wrinkled, I mean vamp faces are never pretty but this guy was ugly. He looked old, like those vamps that get all ugly with time, almost like the picture of that guy with the fruit punch mouth, but not that ugly. He was tall and kind of skinny, dark hair, dark complected skin, I think. He had an accent maybe French or Italian? I'm not sure. He got out a knife and put a couple of cuts on my sides. He said he didn't want to kill me. He wanted to find Angelus' slayer. I told him he was looking at her but he argued with me."
I shake my head. "No he was looking for me. Remember the scar? He was looking for me. What did he say besides that?"
"Nothing, he just said to get the message out. He was looking for Angelus' slayer. He didn't say where to meet him or anything at all." Melanie says.
"I'm betting he'll find me. I'm going to make myself easy to find. You said you were patrolling the night clubs near Live Oak?" I say.
Melanie nods.
"Angel, if they let Melanie out you take her to the magic shop. You and Giles can start some research. I'm going to patrol the area Melanie found this guy in last night, see what I can dig up."
"Buffy, I don't like the idea of you going out there by your self." Angel says.
"Angel, I'm a big girl. This guy can't be worse then any of the others I've faced. I'll be careful. I'll run if I need to, but we've got to find out what he wants with me." I say.
-Angel-
Melanie reminds me of Buffy when it comes to research. She got bored a long time ago and is in the training room practicing her meditation. I refuse to allow her to do anything physical for at least another day.
Willow slams a book shut. "I'm not finding anything. I don't even know what we're looking for."
"A vampire, possibly Italian, old, Melanie is a good slayer. She would have been able to take down anything less then 100 years old." Giles says.
"That narrows it down. Most vampires don't live that long. They get dusted by the slayer or they just get stupid." I say. There has to be something. I close my eyes and sift through my memories.
"Wait a minute. Willow look in the books about the order of Aurelius." I say.
"The order of Aurelius? I thought they were all but disbanded when Buffy turned the Master's bones to dust." Oz says.
"Technically, yes. I hadn't thought of it before because the Master's bloodline ends in Spike, unless he's turned someone I don't know about. There was one though, I never met him. He was an Italian. I was supposed to be the Master's right hand when he took things over. If this guy is thinking about reforming the order of Aurelius and he's been living in a box for the last several years, he could be looking for Angelus." I say.
"Do you remember his name?" Giles asks.
I nod. "Morte Viziosa, it means-"
"Vicious Death." Giles finishes.