Summary: It's 1968 and Angel has found a moment of perfect happiness. Just what it means for Buffy 30 years later remains to be seen. Not happy with the title, so this may change. Will take place at the beginning of Buffy/Season 2, but will deviate from original story line. Almost totally AU. Buffy/Angelus. And Darla's still alive.
Disclaimers: Mutant Enemy and Joss Whedon own it all. I'm just doing this for fun, and hopefully entertainment
"Yes Nurse Richards, I know. But I was sick all night and when I finally fell asleep I just didn't wake up 'til now." She looked at Angel, rolling her eyes. "Yes, if I don't feel better by Monday I'll see the doctor for sure. But really, I'll be fine." She paused, waiting for the nurse to stop talking. "I do realize that I have to be much more responsible now that I'm emancipated. Yes, if I ever get food poisoning again I'll be sure to call you….Yes I am going back to bed…" looking over at Angel's prone form…"right now."
Buffy finally hung up the phone and gazed at her lover. Her lover, what a concept. He was so beautiful, he did have the face of an angel.
"Come here baby, I have something for you." He was leaning on one arm, his eyes half closed and that sexy half-smile on his face. The one that made her heart pick up just a bit.
"Angel." She tried to resist, but had to go to him. "It's afterthree o'clock. Giles will be home soon and I'm sure he'll be by to see how I am." She removed her robe and slipped back into bed, snuggling into his cool embrace. I'm so easy, she thought.
"Here, lover." Angel handed her a small package. "Happy birthday."
She sat up in bed and clapped her hands. "Oh! Presents! Well, present." Buffy smiled and kissed him. "What is it?" She put the box up to her ear and shook it. "Let me guess."
Amused by her excitement, Angel fought the urge to play along with her enthusiasm. "Buff, just open it. Actually it's what I was picking up when I ran into Dru the other night."
"You are not going to put a damper on my happy by bringing up that bitch. And you do not have to fight your happy either. Just because you're a 'soulless, evil demon' doesn't mean you can't enjoy us."
He chuckled, he was actually getting use to the fact that this little girl knew him so well. "Just open the damn thing."
Buffy smiled at him again and opened the box. It held a silver ring. A heart held by two hands, and a crown above it. She gazed up at him, recognizing it to be the same as the one he wore around his neck. She leaned over and kissed him again. A sweet, deep, loving kiss.
If Angel had a heart, he was sure it would have stopped beating at that moment. She loved him so completely and at that moment he felt it. He felt something else, a distant memory, but he pushed it down.
"It's beautiful Angel, thank you."
He removed it from the box and placed it on the third finger of her left hand. The heart pointing towards her. "My people -- before I was changed -- they exchanged this as a sign of devotion. It's a claddagh ring. The hands represent friendship, the crown represents loyalty... and the heart... Well…Wear it with the heart pointing towards you. It means you belong to somebody." Angel looked into her eyes, waiting for a reaction. He didn't understand why he felt so nervous. This just wasn't like him. So much these past few months just weren't like him. He took a deep, unneeded breath.
Buffy felt her heart melting. How could she love this man so much in less than three months?
As if reading her mind. "We were destined to be together Buff. Simple as that."
Leaning into her lover, she took his lips in another searing kiss that left no doubt to the truth of his words. And he felt her total acceptance. Gods, he thought, I'm bonded to this girl forever.
Pulling back, he drank in her eyes. Yup, I am so lost here. Angel had to chuckle.
Leaning on his chest, she smiled up at him fingering the ring around his neck. "Where did this come from?"
He took it from her fingers. "It belonged to my father, a right bastard he was." Just a whisper of a Gallic accent coloring his words.
"How did you get it?"
"It's the only thing I took after I killed my family." He stated.
"Why did you kill them?" Buffy knew he had killed his family, but Angelus had offered no reason, other than the being a demon. Good enough reason, she supposed, but there had to be more.
He shrugged. "When a human is turned, killed, he loses the soul and a demon replaces it. But all the memories are there, still in place. The demon wants, needs to destroy all things that made the body weak. Anything that reminds us of our humanity. Anything that stands in the way of our desires."
Buffy considered his words. "And what about me?"
"You are my desire. And I will destroy anything that gets in our way." He simply replied.
She thought for a moment then reached over, unhooked the chain around his neck and took the ring off it. With a sleepy smile, she took Angel's left had and placed the ring on his finger. "The past is just that, my love." She kissed him again and whispered against his lips "And I'll destroy anything that tries to come between us."
Angel pulled Buffy into his embrace and rolled her underneath him, with a growl that came from deep within his chest he kissed her deeply. "Mine." How had this happened to him?
Laughing, Buffy replied, "I know. Now I have to take a shower and get dressed. Giles will probably be here soon and I need to do a quick patrol before my 'surprise' party." She attempted to roll out from his embrace, but he pinned her down.
"I'm thinking we have a little time. Mr. Watcher will probably head over to the computer lab and carry the gypsy's books for her." He nuzzled between Buffy's breasts.
Distracted, she never-the-less caught that comment. "Gypsy? Miss Calendar's not a gypsy. I don't think Calendar is a gypsy name, is it?"
Running his tongue over her nipples, he murmured, "Probably isn't her real name." As he began to move down to her stomach, she sat up.
"Wait, just stop right there. You cannot just drop a little nugget like that and continue on that path mister. Just what are you talking saying?" Was this woman using Giles? Her Giles?
Impatiently, Angel stopped. "Why do you think I've been avoiding her? I would hate to have to kill the woman your watcher seems so enamored of, okay so maybe not hate. But you wouldn't like it, so I've kept out of her way."
"What makes you think she's a Romany?"
"Baby, they ruined my life. She's a Romany, a Kalderash. I can smell 'em a mile away. They've been watching me for years." He looked up at her. "Buff, if she tries to resoul me, I'll stop her anyway I can."
She put her hand to his cheek. "You won't have to. Is it safe for you to come tonight? I mean will a whole tribe of gypsies be there to return the soul or try to kill you? "
He smiled at her devotion. "Don't worry. They've been following me for decades. Not real stealthy. They won't try anything until they're sure I'm happy. Although I think they lost track of me once I did lose the soul. I stayed out of the limelight, as it were. Forget about them for now. Come here babe. I promise, you'll get out to patrol."
With a look Buffy was almost powerless to resist, almost being the operative word, she picked up his pants and handed them to him. "I'm gonna take a shower, you get dressed in case Giles comes over. I'll only be a couple of minutes and then the shower's yours."
Angelus grabbed her wrist and pulled her back to him. "How about we shower together?"
"Angel" she whined. "Please, let me do what I have to. Please." She was desperate. She wanted him with every fiber of her being, but she had to patrol.
"Okay. Fine." He acquiesced. "But you so owe me. You are staying at my place this weekend."
Buffy looked at herself in the full length mirror. Do I look any different? She asked herself. Another 24 hours in which monumental changes had occurred in her life. Did nothing ever happen gradually for a slayer? She cupped her breasts, they felt sore and fuller somehow, heavier. She ran her hand down to her stomach, looking at her waist and hips which had fading bruises from Angel's grip. Down lower still, an unfamiliar soreness from where he had entered her again and again. Buffy closed her eyes and held onto the edge of the sink at the memories and moaned.
"Sweetheart, you okay?" Angel was leaning against the door jam, a knowing smirk on his face.
"I thought I closed that door." She eyed him suspiciously.
"You did. I opened it." He slowly walked to her, like a predator stalking its prey. She shivered. All that power, all that strength. He stopped in front of her, a hair's breadth away. "What are you doing?" He asked.
"I…I…do I look different? I mean, do I look like I just spent the last 24 hours having sex with you?" Her voice was almost a whisper. "I know this is not a biggie for you, but it's huge for me. Do I look different? I feel different."
"It was pretty huge for me too. It's been a long time Buff. And you look…you look delicious. Good enough to eat. Again." He gave her a wicked laugh.
She gave him a questioning look. "What do you mean a long time?" That definitely caught her attention.
"It means it's been a long time. I haven't sired anyone in quite awhile, I have no minions. Haven't really hung out in the vampire world, trying to keep a low profile and all. So, just haven't been with anyone in awhile. The arbitrary fuck just hasn't been a happening thing." He tried to brush it off as nothing, but for a vampire with his voracious appetites it actually was a big thing. He just hadn't wanted to think about it. And now with this relationship with Buffy, it would seem that he had to.
His master at the San Francisco dojo had been a demon of sorts. Cursed by a white witch in feudal Japan to wander the world in search of recompense for the evil he had committed as a bandit. Master Genji recognized Angel for what he was, yet had welcomed him to his dojo, training him despite his superior abilities.
"So you think you are without soul? What gives you this insight?" the master had asked his pupil of five years.
"I felt it leave my body. The remorse, all the whiney regret. All gone. What else could it be?"
The master was striking Angel in the stomach repeatedly with a bamboo cane, teaching Angel to disregard the pain, to enter that place in his head that was beyond the mere physical.
"And yet, here youstand before me, allowing the pain I inflict. Not attempting to take my life or the life of any here. As far as I know, not a life in the past five years. Why is this so of a demon with no soul who lives on the fear and blood of mortals?"
"I guess after the whole curse, my heart just wasn't in it anymore."As he winced, he realizedcould never be so honest with anyone else, of this Angel was sure.
"Your heart. A heart that no longer beats. Yet a heart that feels. Who is to say where the soul resides boy. Who is to say when and where the heart, the soul, the mind; when and where they merge?"
This revelation shook Angelus to the core and he fell to the floor. He had attempted to revert to his old ways, but was never successful. And after five more years of study his sensei had left. The need to find redemption never far from the old man's heart.
"You will find your way boy. Never doubt that. But it is the journey not the arrival that determines what you are made of. I have great hopes for you. Greater than you will ever know."
At that moment Angelus was never more torn. On one hand he wanted to take the old man in an embrace and ask him to stay and on the other he felt the need to rip his head from spine, ending the platitudes.
In the end, he merely said good-bye.
Buffy looked at him. There was an odd far-away look on his face, one she hadn't seen before. "Are you okay? Wanna go on patrol with me?"
He shook off the memories. "Can't. Gotta go pick up a birthday cake. I swear Buff, you are so going to make this up to me. I am a soulless, evil demon. I should not be picking up ice cream cakes for my girlfriend's birthday party."
She immediately perked up. "Ice cream cake? Yummy. What kind of ice cream?" Buffy put her arms around him, letting her hands fall to cup his backside. She felt his muscles tense through his pants.
"Oh, I see. Testing me? I really don't care if I disappoint your friends, so we can just stay here and fuck through your seventeenth birthday. I'm fine with that."
"You are no fun at all. It's starting to get dark, so I'll just make a quick run through. What time should I be back here?"
"6:30. And babe, let's try to make an early evening of it. I really want to get you home."