AWAKENING TO BUFFY
PROLOGUE – Heaven on Earth – Sweet Buffy
I remember hearing her soft voice before ever comprehending the words, melodic, beautiful, distant and only one explanation came to me. . . I'm dead, not undead, not walking dead, but the normal dead that mortals strived for. I'm in what I had convinced myself couldn't exsist, at least couldn't exsist for me. . .
Heaven.
I was in that mythical unreachable Heaven and someone, something had deemed me worthy to be greeted with my girl, my perfect happiness, my beloved. Somehow Buffy was with me, finally Buffy was with me, no immortal, no Spike, just Angel and Buffy. . . Buffy and Angel.
Was she dead as well?
I attempt to open my eyes, that sudden movement shattering my perfect bliss.
Damn!
White hot pain coursed every inch of my body with the small act of opening my eyelids. Images washed in front of me in a blur of dark out of focus blobs.
I should have known I would never be deemed worthy of heaven.
"Damn it, focus Angel." I curse myself silently as I begin rapidly opening and closing my eyes, letting the pain become something to focus on.
But as my vision clears, the pain becomes worth it, secondary if you will to what waits before me.
I don't think I'm dead.
But somehow my girl was here, wherever here was, and I could sense her heart beat, smell her smell, see her, practically taste. . .
"Buff.."
She puts one of those petite fingers on my lips to stop the words in my throat and I notice for the first time her swollen red eyes, her dry cracked lips, quivering with what I could only guess as barely controlled. . .fear, anger?
Was this emotion for me? Is it really that bad? Am I close to a pile of dust or is she upset because I'm not already one.
I momentarily flash to Andrew's dooming words in L.A. The words that have haunted me every day, even in the alley. . .
Again I try to tell her I'm okay but the words stop short when I see her gather her blond hair in her hands and tilt her head to the right, almost. . .inviting.
Beautiful tanned skin, pulsating vein. . .a lethal combination to any vampire, soul or no soul and the fact that it was Buffy's neck, my mark staring at me, her blood calling me, played at everyone of my frayed nerves.
Why?
Oh no no no...
A cold sweat breaks out over my entire body as my demon awakes with a sudden blood lust that scared the hell out of me. I knew, in my gut I just knew what she was going to say.
"Drink."
Her voice was commanding, almost heartfelt, but there was no way in hell I was going to heade to it. Whether she loved me or hated me, I wasn't going there again. I didn't finally have her in front of me to potenitally kill her. I wasn't worth it.
It didn't matter that her heartbeat suddenly vibrated in my head as if it was my own. Despite the fact the sudden worry I sensed from her nearly intoxicated me with the ideas of what it meant.
I shake my head in ventemtly in what I hope to be a comanding "No." I don't think, as strong in conviction that I am, that I could verbally do it.
"I wasn't asking."
Her eyes slit, I know that look all to well.
"You drink, you heal and then my darling Angel I am going to kick you ass. What the hell were you thinking?"
My body still hurts, but I lift a hand to lightly touch her neck and my mark, the mark that at the moment almost glistened.
Despite how it became, that mark was something I was ashamed to be secretly proud of.
The lass wants it, a small inner voice teased. Angelus, perhaps. Or my own delirum,.
"No. . ." it comes as a whisper as my thoughts drift to Wesley, Fred, Gunn, potentially Spike, Illyiara. . .the alley.. . I'm suppose to be in the alley.
Visions of my past hit me, the alley, Wolfram & Hart, blood, dragon. . .death, so much death.
I attempt to sit up, but a firm manicured hand holds me firmly on the bed. "Fine my love, we will do this the hard way."
The fist found my jaw with a crack and almost instantly the fangs grew. My will was so weak at this moment, I'm surprised they had stayed hidden as long as they had.
I'm so tired. . .too tired to fight her.
My eyes watched in a mixture of horror and fasination as that creamy neck found its way to me.
Sweet Buffy. . ..
Helplessly I lay back, close my eyes and allow fate to take over.
Warm hands on my forehead, fingers playing in my hair, vanilla perfume.
I don't want to open my eyes, but I do, I feel I must. The pain that had haunted me earlier had all seemed to have cleared.
I only wonder why she is awake before me.
My eyelids flutter, to a very beautiful, no... the most beautiful blond (and trust me I have engaged a few in my years) above me, slightly paler, staring down with a determination. Despite everything, I can't help but notice she doesn't exhibit, at least outwardly, the unadulteradted hate I feared. Thinking more level headed then my previous encounter, I see worry, I see compassion. . . can't help but notice I don't see undying love. . .but alas I don't see a stake in my near future.
"Buffy?"
I cock my eyebrow. I am trying to gage her reaction before I barrade her with the million or so questions running rampt through my head. My friends, my quest, how the hell she plays into this all.
"You could have died out there."
Simply put her words somehow seem out of place from her mouth. I wonder why her words lack any emotion, but I see her jaw squarly set. Perhaps stopping what she really wants to say.
Buffy restrained, my how times have changed.
I attempt to sit up, but fail miserably only making it halfway before clapsing into. . .pillows?
"Buffy. . . I don't know what to say in way of answers, but I have a hell of a lot of questions.
Helplessly I search her face for that compassion I know must be brimming just beneath her exterior.
"Perhaps you could have asked for help," she moves from where she had perched herself beside me and for the first time I notice we are in a bedroom. Quickly scanning the room for anything else in way of a clue, I see a familiar face, Mr. Gordo.
"Buffy are we in Rome?"
I shake my head trying to comprehend how long I could have been out and ultimately what did that mean for my friends, for LA, for the world.
"No," Buffy turns her back to me to face a window.
I notice her shoulders sag, before beginning to shake. Crying?
Somehow the heartbraking site forces me from the bed. The strength I so lacked before somehow coming to me, compeling me across the room.
"I'm sorry." I find myself behind her and hesitantly I take my right hand to her shoulder. I didn't know if she would sucker punch me for the bold move.
I watch her turn towards me, her head cocking up so she could look at me.
"I thought you were evil."
"I thought you safer in Rome."
"I thought you didn't care?"
"I thought you needed to be done baking?
Humerous our exchange would be, if it didn't exhibit how truly seperated we had become. How we had let our worlds, always so entangled one way or the other, to drift so far apart.
How could I have been so . . .
"My friends?"
"You were the only one we found. There are still search parties, but the outcome looks. . .grim." Apologetically she squeezes my hand, "If I didn't have my connection to you, I doubt you would have been found."
The shock of her words hit me deep down, make me ill and barely conscious of my own actions, I find myself wrapping my arms around my once lover. The feel of her warm body the only thing keeping me from finding the nearest stake.
I had allowed. . . no I had led the charge to take down everyone important to me. My friends, the closest thing to family and because of me they were gone.
"What happened to L.A."
I feel the body pressed against me go rigid, but her arms, once slack, attempt to wrap around me.
"Buffy, did I take down L.A. Please don't tell me I've killed innocents? I was so sure. . ."
"L.A. Is safe." barely a whisper, her face turns into my chest and I feel a wetness penetrate my shirt. Salty tears.
"How?
"Its not important."
"Buffy?"
"Angel, we have time, but now you need to rest." Ending the discussion she backs away and turns toward the door. Instinctively I find my hand go to her shoulder to stop her retreat.
"Angel. . ."
"Stay." Barely audible I find my request come out more as a plea, but I don't care. My world as I knew it was over except for her, and the thought of losing sight of the only thing I have left terrified me.
"Angel. . .I should let you get some sleep."
"You think I am going to be able to sleep?"
I am not beyond begging at this point for her not to leave me, but I don't think it will result to that, because I notice her face finally began to crack from her control. I see a little piece of her, in her eyes, that tells me she wants to stay.
Despite the world ending I find a tiny bit of relief. Maybe she doesn't flat out hate me.
"Lay down."
Deciding not to press my luck, I nod and head to the bed. I hear her soft footfalls behind me.
Lowering myself into bed I turn just in time to catch Buffy, so beautiful, so grown-up, slip beside me, her blond hair fan out on the pillow next to me.
"Buffy?"
Without words, she holds her arms out and motions me with a nod of her head to lay down within her embrace.
"I could hold you." I whisper, unsure whether I really wanted to, or just wanted to be the Angel she remembered. The strong, sure Angel I wasn't sure I could pull off.
"Would you let me take care of you Angel, lord knows its all I ever wanted to do."
She smirks the cutest smirk and my resolve vanishes. Slowly I lower my head to her abdomen, bare from her middrift shirt riding up and inhale the intoxicating scent that was all her own. A scent that had greeted me in my dreams every night for nearly a decade.
I feel the long fingers of my slayer entagle in my hair, her fingertips rubbing circular patterns on my scalp, an eerily relaxing procedure.
"Will you tell me ab..."
"No. There is time to mourn what we have lost, later."
I sigh, wishing I could get the images of Gunn, Wesley and even Spike and Illyira out of my head. Wishing I knew why her heartbroken looked as similar as my own.
As if reading my mind I hear her sigh softly, "I know what its like to lead your closest friends to their demise. . .I know there is nothing that can be said to make it right."
The infliction in her voice, the knowledge, brought a tear to my eye. Unsure what to do or to say, I just tighten my embrace.
I'm finding myself afraid to know what she knows.
SECTION 1
After an hour, I realized as comforting as this position was, sleep, rest or whatever Buffy had wanted for me wasn't going to happen. Despite the fact at the moment there was no where else in any world I'd rather be, I had come to realize the present, whatever it was, was too looming to even be blocked out by being in Buffy's presence.
Unfortunately, I think Buffy knew it too, because when I flinched, I heard from her an audible sigh of disapproval, followed by a deep breath of defeat.
"Man, your stubborn as always."
Her voice sounded both unsurprised and disappointed as she slowly dis tangled her fingers from my hair, allowing the both of us to sit up.
I look to my left, a window displaying both dusk and definite California sky.
Something about a California sky makes it distinguishable from any other sky, even after the legendary sun had fallen.
"L.A.?"
A dry laugh (sarcastic?) escapes those perfect pink lips, as she pulls herself up to sitting and drew her knees into her chest, almost protectively, "Worse, Sunnyvale California."
Shaking my head I look at her puzzled, unsure of what I had heard. "Sunny. . .vale?"
"Haven't you heard? I thought maybe your firm invented it." a sudden bitterness creeps into her voice, which I pick up on right away, and her eyes downcast from my gaze, "'Sunnyvale' is a town that just happens to appear where a once Sunnydale used to be. The kicker is that this 'Sunnyvale' has a history that predates a town no one has heard of named 'Sunnydale'. Consequently, Sunnydale has been wiped out from every history book, California record and mind of any mortal, excluding us lucky few who lived there and got out alive."
Sunnyvale Sunnydale? What was the purpose? Could she really believe I had a part in this?
"I didn't know, I swear."
"Sunnyvale has a hellmouth, in a basement of its high school in fact, and you, after much soul searching and dreaming on my part, were found laying smack dab ontop of its seal. Bleeding from what looked like to be self inflicted wounds. . ."
Again her eyes hardened as they scanned every inch of my face, searching. Normally I wouldn't mind having her eyes rape over me so, but this seemed wrong, so harsh, so not the attention from Buffy I craved.
"Buffy, I wouldn't have aided in recreating Sunnydale, vale or whatever letter you want to swap in its place. I was not, or haven't been evil in a very long time, despite where I worked."
I looked at her pleadingly, running my hands up and down my opposite arms in frustration. How did this turn so ugly so fast.
"Buffy, I would never do that to you. . .not for anyone. I would never intentionally hurt you by bring back, or letting anyone else bring back Sunnydale into your reality. I would have been staked first. . .by my own hand."
I rambled aimlessly, in shock my her accusation.
Her shoulders loosened at my disbelief. I think she believed me. The relief of such flooded over me in waves.
"I know, I mean I thought I knew. . .I just promised Xander I would be sure. He's worried. . more so than usual. . . he's kind of went from brother to father lately."
Again seeing approval in her face I felt my defenses fall away. This was going to be okay. We were going to be okay and that was important.
As if to solidify my assumption, I watch with anticipation as Buffy comes to me from across the room. With dancer like grace, I watch her raise up on her tip toes and throw her arms around my neck. Without so much as a single word pass between us, just a look, an unguarded look telling me everything she feels about me without her having to say a single word, the very same feelings I have been fighting on and off about her, she draws my face to hers.
"Angel. . ." .
She looked at me like she wanted to say more, but couldn't formulate the words.
At this moment I doubt I could handle much more from her anyways. I was fighting every urge, from my body, heart and soul, to sweep her back onto the bed and tell the world to be damned. Whats done is done and if I didn't allow myself at least one selfish urge I may never be allowed this moment again.
Of course neither one of us were the selfish type, so instead I lien in, settling for the small allowance of feeling her body heat as close as possible. Barely restrained, that seemed a motto both Buffy and I would be forced to live by.
"If you would have called me I could have helped. There may have been a better outcome. . .for the both of us."
"I'm sorry. . ."
I was sorry. She was right of course. As a team, a combined force, we could handle everything, easier, more confidently, more efficient. "I just convinced myself, after talking with Andrew in both L.A. and Rome, that. . .that you had moved on."
Buffy smile faltered at my confession, "Andrew?"
I really didn't want to talk Andrew at the moment, so I buried my face in her hair in hopes of persuading that subject to be dropped. I wanted to know more about L.A., I wanted to know more about how she found me, and more so I wanted to know about what she lost. Her allusions about what my fight cost her were worrying me. The absence of her gang, in person or by mention alone, was unsettling.
The absence of Andrew and his big mouth on the other hand, that was a relief.
"Angel, did you say Andrew?"
Her voice had an edge and much to my disappointment she pulled away from me, "Are you sure you've seen Andrew? Recently? Since I took down Sunnydale and the First? Geeky Andrew, blond and annoying?"
"Yes, the first time I had the. . .pleasure of meeting him is when Giles sent him to help with the mentally impaired slayer, and then again I ran into him at your apartment, when Spike and I were in Rome. You were out at the time with your new vampire friend." I again attempt to pull her closer, but she remains firmly in her spot away from me.
I expected at this point to see some recognition in my slayer's face by mention of my meetings, or maybe some explanation about why she would even entertain the notion of the Immortal Piece of Crap, but instead the puzzlement in her face grew, "Spike?"
"The necklace. . .we had a whole resurrection thing in my office. . .Andrew didn't tell you?"
That surprised me, I thought the runt would have written a sonata about Spike undying affections for Buffy to recite upon his arrival back in Rome.
"Andrew?" Shaking her head she again turns from me, but this time I could almost see the wheels in her cute little head turning. Something wasn't sitting right with her, but until she gave me some clue, I was helpless to do anything but smile encouragingly.
"Giles never told me about any call. . ."
I sighed, was that it?" The fact her watcher tried to keep us apart for any reason didn't seem all that hard to believe. We may have respected each other, but Giles and I were never going to be best friends. He had seen the worst of me and like most people who had, he wasn't going to be able to ever fully forget it.
Besides, hadn't everyone in Rome thought he had gone Angelus anyway? Perhaps Buffy had let it go in one ear and out the other for her own sake.
"Buffy, Andrew isn't important. I didn't like his bluntness and I thought his worshipfulness of Spike highly unsettling, but he didn't say anything I probably shouldn't have heard. Besides, in the grand scheme of things, is Andrew really important?"
Buffy smiled a half hearted smile while fiddling with the cross necklace, my present to her a lifetime ago, "Usually I would say no, in the grand scheme of things Andrew isn't important, except for the fact Andrew never made it out of the US with the rest of us. Andrew suffered internal bleeding from our fight with the first and didn't last the first night on the bus, when we were escaping Sunnydale. Angel. . .Andrew is dead. Andrew has been dead for over quite a while."
"Dead?"
Shaking her head sadly she placed both hands on the sides of her forehead as if attempting to keep my words or her thoughts, from driving her mad.
"Buffy?"
Before I could press further a knock came from the bedroom door.
"You and dead boy done yet, I think there is something you guys should see."
Xander Harris.
I looked at Buffy and was relieved to see her upright again, with a half smile on her face, "Glad to see somethings don't ever change. Play nice?"
I nodded and smiled back. Xander Harris and his humor would actually be welcome right about now.
I take her hand, habit, and after a moment of her just staring at the interlocked fingers, she squeezes a gentle squeeze and together we head to whatever Xander had waiting on the other side of the door.
