Chapter 17

Standing beneath the blinds that shaded the empty tables in the narrow alleyway, Buffy took the opportunity to rub at the small of her back where the ache was worst. Late afternoon the bar attracted little passing trade, but no matter how quiet it was she was not allowed to sit down.

Four months had passed since Buffy had walked out on Angel. She had soon lived to regret that impulsive decision to fly out of the country, for nothing had gone quite as she had planned. Renting a room in Rome had proved to be much more expensive than she had naively expected and she had used up all the money she had before she had finally got a job as a waitress. Indeed she had only recently managed to save up enough to buy a ticket back home.

She was unlikely to have a job for much longer; her once flat tummy was beginning to protrude, no matter how hard she tried to hold it in. Going to Rome had not been a good idea. Back home she would have had a better chance of finding a better job.

So why hadn't she told Angel the truth; that she was expecting his child and that she intended to keep their baby. Why had she felt so guilty about that decision? Even more to the point, why on earth did she miss Angel so much? Feeling her eyes itch, Buffy blinked back the tears that of late seemed to come all too easily to her. Here she was, pregnant, poor, miserable and alone in a foreign country.

Out of the corner of her eye she finally registered that one of the tables at the far end had been taken. After two steps in that direction she recognized the angle of that dark head. Her feet faltered and her heart leapt into what felt like the foot of her convulsing throat.

Angel removed his sunglasses. Lustrous, dark deep set eyes zoomed in on her. His hard jaw line clenched. Even wearing that grim and tense expression and clad in what appeared to be a formal business suit, he looked incredibly sexy. A seriously devastating wave of love and lust enthralled Buffy.

"Sit down," Angel suggested.

"I can't. I'm not allowed to," she said unevenly, wondering wildly if he had missed her as much as she had, looking at him she added jerkily, "What would you like to drink?"

"Either sit down or tell me where you're staying and we'll go there to talk," Angel countered firmly.

"How did you find me?"

"With the greatest of difficulty." Lines of strain girded his mouth as she stole a glance at him from beneath her lashes.

"But Faith was of some help..."

"Faith?"

"Buffy...I have news that you are likely to find distressing."

"Nothing you could tell me would distress me anymore, and if you don't want a drink I'm not hanging around here to chat." Buffy began to turn away again.

"For God's sake!" Angel gritted in a driven undertone and he thrust back his chair to rise to his full commanding height. "Jenny...is ill..."

Buffy jerked into the stillness of complete shock and gaped at him.

"I'm here to fly you home so that you can be with her," Angel explained, temper back under control again, his voice level and quiet.

Her skin had turned damp and chilled and her head was starting to swim. She blinked at him. "Ill with...what?"

"She had a brain tumor," Angel admitted after a marked hesitation. "She..."

Horror engulfed Buffy. A brain tumor? Dizziness swept over her and, as she lurched towards one of the seats with the belated intent of sitting down, everything blacked out and she fainted.

Surfacing with a dazed head again, Buffy discovered that she was lying on the narrow bed in her room on the floor above the café. Her employer's wife was chattering excitably to Angel in Italian and nodding with approval as though impressed by his responses. Jenny was dead. That was the news that Angel had been trying to break gently to her, obviously he had not wanted to make that announcement in a public place.

"Did Jenny just go...suddenly?" Buffy whispered.

Angel looked round, his brow indented with a frown. "Jenny's not dead," he assured her immediately. "She had surgery, major surgery. She's holding her own...just."

Buffy attempted to follow that explanation but her brain was slow to comprehend, for she was numb with shock. She had reacted to Angel's arrival on a very personal level, only to discover that he had sought her out again for another reason entirely. She felt completely disorientated. "She's...alive?"

"Yes, but I'm afraid she hasn't recovered consciousness as yet."

"I was talking to her on the phone only a few days ago," Buffy protested as she pushed herself up on her elbows and sat up.

Angel sank down on the edge of the bed so that they were on a level. His brilliant dark eyes were very serious. "It happened very fast and with little apparent warning. Jenny developed a severe headache and simply collapsed. I called an ambulance and she was rushed to the hospital."

"But the doctors operated, so there's hope," Buffy said, more for her own benefit than his. "That's what I've got to concentrate on."

"I'll wait downstairs." Angel slid upright again. "If you can pack quickly we can be in Sunnydale at night." Buffy was frantic with concern for Jenny but she appreciated the fact that Angel had not offered her empty reassurances. She knew that he was afraid that Jenny might not survive the night.

"Did you have business over here?" Buffy asked on the drive to the airport.

"No. I came for you. Faith could only tell me that you were working in a café somewhere in Rome. I put my staff on the phones. Café owners rarely register casual workers and only personal enquiries were likely to receive an honest response."

"I should have given Faith my address..." Buffy mumbled, horrified by the trouble and inconvenience he had been put to in his efforts to locate her. He had flown all the way here for her benefit.

"I flew out on spec, hoping that you would be traced by the time I arrived. Wesley struck lucky when I was halfway here," Angel completed, tight mouthed.

Gritty tears lashed the backs of Buffy's eyes. Willing them back, she thanked him again and fell silent. She fell asleep during the flight. Angel wakened her about an hour before the airplane landed and she went to freshen up. When she returned a meal awaited her, and although she had small appetite she did her best to eat in the hope that food would give her more energy. But never had Buffy felt more miserable. Even in the midst of fretting about Jenny, she was horribly conscious of the change in Angel's attitude to her. While being concerned, polite and in every way supportive, he was also maintaining a detached and impersonal approach.

"I can manage to get to the hospital on my own," Buffy said tightly as soon as they arrived in Sunnydale. "Thank you. You've been wonderful."

"I'm coming with you." Angel urged. "You'll find Mr. Giles keeping a vigil by her bed..."

"Mr. Giles, the High school librarian?" Buffy glanced at him in surprise.

"He asked her to marry him last week." Registering her astonishment at that information, Angel sighed. "I gather Jenn didn't keep you informed."

"No, she didn't."

She looked at Angel but only when he was not looking at her. It struck her that his hard boned features had fined down since she had last seen him. He was so tense as well. He obviously was hating every moment of their enforced proximity, she thought painfully.

"I'm so sorry about all this," she muttered as she hurried into the hospital elevator in advance of him.

As the lift doors whirred shut, Angel surveyed her with impenetrable dark eyes, his strong face taut. "Please don't misunderstand me when I say that I don't feel comfortable with your gratitude. You don't owe me any apologies either. I did what I had to do. It wasn't much. Let's leave it at that."

"Ok. How's...how's Darla?"

"She's fine." He said curtly.

Buffy lowered her wounded gaze to the floor. She so badly wanted to feel his arms around her again but she knew that that was not going to happen.

"I'd like to see her," Buffy went to the doctor as soon as they were out the elevator.

"Mr. Giles will have to come out. Only one person is allowed by her bed in the ICU." The doctor informed her gently. "Are you a relative?"

"Yes, I'm her niece."

She looked around for Angel and saw his retreating form vanish from the doorway.

Ushered into the ICU by a kindly nurse, Buffy focused on Jenny and all the machinery surrounding her. She stopped thinking about herself and her own problems and started praying instead and willing the older woman to come through. Curling up in a corner seat, she waited out what remained of the night.

By Mid morning, Angel came back to the hospital. By then the general scenario was that Jenny Calendar was on the road to recovery. She had regained consciousness, squeezed Giles's hand and recognized Buffy with a weak smile. Angel studied Buffy carefully. "You can come back to the house now and sleep..."

"No, thanks," she said tightly.

"Don't make this more difficult than it already is," Angel told her with a look of criticism. "Are you planning to sleep on a hard chair just to score against me?"

Buffy folded her arms with a jerk. She was so close to tears, she could not trust herself to speak. From the doorway of the ICU she had watched Jenny look at Giles's pale but smiling face and had appreciated that she took much greater strength and comfort from Giles presence than from hers.

"I'm not trying to score against anybody."

Angel folded an arm round her hunched shoulders, swept up the handbag lying on the seat she had vacated and walked her into the elevator. Too busy fighting to keep the tears in check, Buffy was rigid for fear that she might suddenly succumb and fling herself against his chest and start sobbing all over him

Angel tucked her into his car with careful hands. "You look tired. You need rest. Have a good cry if it makes you feel better."

"Stop being so nice!" Buffy gasped accusingly, throwing herself over to the far corner of the back seat and ducking down her head.

Without warning, a pair of lean and very determined hands settled round her waist and dragged her inexorably across the space she had opened between them. Angel brought his mouth crashing down on hers. She went from raging emotional turmoil and tears to raw excitement within seconds. Instantly she was kissing him back, running her hands over his shoulders, his hair, any part of him within reach, and her heart was hammering as breathing was a luxury no longer required.

It felt so good to be back in his arms, she had no control, no thought of what she was doing. Only the elemental surge of her own love and desperate hunger guided her. The pleasure was explosive, primal, almost too hot to bear. When he threw back his head and deprived her of that connection she suffered a cruel sense of loss.

Angel stared down at her, his jaw line clenched hard. "My only excuse is lack of sleep. My apologies." he breathed in a coarse undertone. "But if it happens again, try pushing me away."

Trembling and disorientated by a similar amount of sleep deprivation, Buffy could not meet his gaze. That final comment of his filled her with rage. Yet still she had the urge to drag him back to her, to lose herself in his arms. Her emotions were all over the place. A mix of love and hatred was tearing her apart.

"Go to your old room." Angel said as they entered the house, trying not to look around her old home. It was painful to be back here.

She felt as if he could not wait to get her out of his sight. She relived her own passionate response in his car and let the tears come, the tears of stress, which she had held back for so many hours. Slumped on the bed, fully clothed, she fell asleep.

Wakening in the afternoon in her crumpled garments, she grimaced at her shadowed eyes and tousled hair. A long shower made her feel much more like a human being. A towel firmly secured round her, she rubbed at the pain in the small of her back. Ever conscious of her changing shape in recent weeks, she had begun hunching her shoulders, aware that when she practiced good posture her swelling stomach was much more obvious. But enough was enough, she decided ruefully, straightening her shoulders with determination as she padded back into the bedroom.

She stopped dead, Angel was walking in through the bedroom door. "I did knock...I assumed you were still asleep," he said. "Giles called and he tells me that Jenny is asking for you..."

"Really?" Buffy exclaimed, exited by the news. Turning away from him, she headed straight for her suitcase. "I'd better get dressed and get over to the hospital immediately."

She heard Angel draw in a sharp breath. A frown line indenting her brow, she glanced at him again. Angel was as still as a statue, his full attention to her body.

"My God, you're pregnant?" Angel dragged his stunned gaze from the no longer visible swell to her face.

"Pregnant?" Buffy echoed sharply, most of her oxygen supply engaged in the effort it took to keep her tummy in. "Are you insane?"

"Let's see. Take the towel off and start breathing again!" Angel strode forward, looking very much like a guy with a mission to prove his point by any means available.

Buffy backed off, horrified. If he took the towel off, all would be revealed.

"Buffy...I want the truth," Angel growled, intent dark eyes clashing with hers.

Buffy swallowed hard.

"The baby has to be mine," Angel continued, fiercely scanning her pale, strained face for answers. "It's got to be!"

"Yes," Buffy whispered through compressed lips, and she dropped her head because she could not bring herself to retain visual contact when she told him. "It's your baby..."

"So why did you tried to convince me that there was nothing to worry about in Hawaii? Was that an honest mistake on your part?" Angel demanded in a low driven undertone, his dark deep drawl no longer level. "Did you only discover that you were carrying my child after you'd walked out on me?"

"Yes." Suddenly Buffy was feeling very guilty and confused.

Angel absorbed that confession with bleak, dark eyes. "So why didn't you tell me?"

Weak from stress, Buffy sank down on the corner of the bed. "I really didn't know what to do when I found out I was pregnant. Giving our circumstances I thought it was for the best not to tell you."

"That's no excuse." Disconcertingly impervious to that mode of appeal, Angel shot her a look of angry derision. "This is my baby too."

"You're not being fair," she argued shakily. "I was angry and upset with you after everything that happened with Darla. I wasn't going back to you just because I was pregnant..."

"Well, what you want and what you get isn't always the same thing in this life," Angel drawled with icy precision. "But I can assure you that we are getting married. Just as fast as I can arrange it. We don't have a choice."

"But aren't you married to Darla?"

"No. I'm not"

Tbc...