Chapter 11
The relentless, shrilling ring of his telephone greeted Angel when he walked back into his house. He sighed out loud at the intrusion. The last thing he wanted was to talk to anybody. There were too many things whirling around in his head to have a coherent conversation with whoever was calling. The visit to Giles' house, and the resulting revelations, had left him emotionally wrung out. Even as a bystander, hearing about the murders, and then seeing Buffy, had torn at him.
He contemplated letting his machine answer the phone, checked the caller ID, and sighed again.
"Hey, Fred," he greeted after picking up the receiver.
"Angel!" Fred returned, her voice mildly chiding. "I've been trying to call you all night!"
"Sorry," he apologized. "I was out and just got home."
"Out? It's kind of late isn't it?" she asked.
"I was...meeting some friends." It wasn't a lie. Precisely. He was with people who were sort of friends.
"You're made some friends? That's great, Angel! Tell me all about them!" his sister ordered.
Angel held back a chuckle. Fred would likely want to make sure he was hanging out with nice people. She loved to worry. So he told her the basics of what he knew about the group he'd been with. Willow and Spike were engaged and they owned an internet café in town, and Xander was a friend of theirs who worked in construction. They were a little younger than he was, but nice people. Thankfully, Fred accepted the descriptions.
"I'm glad you're not sitting home all the time, or working too much," Fred babbled happily.
"I don't think there's much chance of being bored around her," Angel replied then hoped his sister missed the sarcasm in his voice. Better change the subject, he thought. "Your finals start soon, right?"
"Yeah," she sighed out. "My first one is in two days."
"Shouldn't you be studying then," he teased, all the while knowing his little sister was an obsessive studier.
"I'm taking a break," she told him. "I'm afraid my brain's going explode soon."
"Wouldn't want that to happen," Angel said with a laugh.
"Anyways," she continued. "I just wanted to see how you were doing. I better get back to my notes."
"Okay. Good luck with your finals," he told her then said his goodbyes.
After hanging up the phone, Angel simply stood in the center of his kitchen and wondered what he was supposed to do next. None of his plans for moving to the supposedly quiet, small town of Sunnydale had surrounded around becoming involved with a murder mystery and meeting a believed-dead woman. No, that really hadn't been part of his plans. All he'd wanted was a peaceful, steady life after years of travel.
Well, he wasn't exactly getting that, was he? So what was he supposed to do now? He'd heard the story of the murder of Giles family. He'd found out that Buffy was alive, being hidden in her house because her father, and the police, believed she'd killed her family. He knew it all now. It shouldn't matter to him. None of it. But it did.
He remembered the way Buffy had stared at him up in her third floor prison. He remembered how sad and full of grief her eyes had looked. And he remembered how she had stared through the window, gazing out at a world she was no longer really a part of. There was a distinct urge in him to gather her close, hold her, and tell her everything would be all right. But he didn't know if it would be, and that was a promise he couldn't make.
What he needed, Angel told himself, was to stop thinking about this entire situation for a while. He was obsessing over it, and obsession was almost never good. Time for a break, or time for some work, actually. So grabbing a bottle of ice tea out of the refrigerator, Angel trekked through his house and into his office. He would go over some prints for the Chumash article. That would, hopefully, take his mind off...everything else.
The moon shone down on him from high overhead as Angel walked the beach almost two hours later. Work had held him for a while, then he'd managed to get some laundry started. He'd hoped sleep would follow, but he'd found himself restless, and after staring out the window for ten minutes, he'd walked out and onto the sand.
A few feet away, the waves slapped roughly at the beach. There must be a storm coming in soon, he thought, though the sky was still clear. It would probably rain the next day. He didn't mind. It would be the weekend, and he wouldn't have to go in to work so he could spend the whole day in his house. The perfect place to be on a rainy, stormy day.
He knew she was there before she stepped up beside him. Just like he'd unconsciously known she would come., and that he wanted to be there. To see her, to talk to her. He didn't look at her, only continued to gaze at the dark ocean in front of him.
"It's beautiful," she said softly.
"Yeah," he agreed, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "I like waking up and seeing it outside my windows every morning."
"I like to come here most when the moon is full," she told him then sat down, sliding off her sandals so she could bury her feet in the sand.
Angel glanced down at her, wondered if she wanted to be alone. She'd talked to him though. She hadn't ignored him. So he eased himself down next to her, making sure to leave a generous two feet between them. He didn't want to frighten her or make her feel threatened in anyway.
"I leave my windows open sometimes at night so I can hear the waves," he relayed for lack of anything else to say.
She sighed, linked her arms around her raised knees. "Sometimes I think I could fall asleep out here. Then maybe..."
"Maybe what?" Angel prodded gently.
"Then maybe...maybe the nightmares wouldn't come."
What was he supposed to say to that? He supposed he should have said something soothing or pacifying, but there wasn't anything he could say. There was nothing he could do to ease whatever pain she felt inside. So he said nothing and continued to watch the lapping of the waves under the pale light of the moon.
The beach was quiet except for the calming ocean sounds. There were no gulls squawking overhead, no chattering tourists or townspeople, no roaring of traffic, just the ocean. They were completely alone. And it never occurred to Angel to feel fear over the fact that he was alone with someone who had supposedly murdered three members of her family. Aside from his uncertainty at what to say to her, he felt comfortable.
Beside him, Buffy rested her chin on the tops of her knees and closed her eyes. She loved sitting or walking on the beach. It was one of the few places she didn't feel trapped. Her rooms on the third floor of the house on the cliffs were well-furnished and entirely livable, but they were her prison. They were where her father had told her she had to stay. She thought more often than not that he would prefer she wasn't there at all. She was his burden.
No one ever came to see her. The only person she ever saw was Giles. Everyone else had abandoned her. Or died. And all of it was her fault. She couldn't blame anyone but herself. But she wondered...
"Why did you all come today? To the house?" she clarified, turning her head to rest her cheek on her knees.
Who was he, she wondered. She'd seen him around the pretty Victorian house recently. He wasn't one to be easily missed with his tall height and strong build. Once, she'd watched him while he'd stood on his porch at night, taking pictures. The yearning to talk to him, to anyone, had almost driven her across the sand and up the steps to him. But her father had told her not to talk to anyone or let them see her. And he was a man, someone she didn't know. So she'd slipped back into the woods and up to her house, allowing her tears to fall freely the whole way.
And now here he was, sitting on the beach talking to her. Why? Why had he come to her this afternoon? Why had the others?
"Willow wanted to see you," Angel answered, his voice quiet and non-threatening. "She's missed her best friend for the last four years."
"Four years? Is that how long it's been?" She thought about it, shrugged her shoulders slightly. "It seems longer."
Another thing he didn't know how to respond to, Angel thought with an inner groan. "She wanted to see you," he continued answering the original question. "When she found out you were alive she-."
"Alive?" Buffy repeated in a whisper.
"Yeah, she..." he trailed off abruptly. Good God, he thought, did she not know what people thought? What had Giles told her? What did she know? He was floundering completely in the dark, he suddenly realized.
"Why wouldn't she think I was alive?" she pushed hesitantly. For four years she'd lived in silence, alone. Ever since the night... That night. Ever since, nothing had been real, nothing had been right. She wanted to know why. Need to know why.
There was nothing for him to say but the truth. He could have lied, or hedged, but her sad, inquiring eyes stopped him. He couldn't lie to her.
"After...," he began, wondering if he was doing the right thing. "Well after, your father let everyone believe that you had died that...that because of what happened, you had killed yourself by jumping off the cliffs." He saw the surprise and hurt in her eyes, hated himself for putting it there.
Buffy turned away, pressed her forehead to her knees. So that was why. Her father wished she was gone, wished she was dead. That was why he pushed her up onto the third floor of the house that had once been her home, why he kept her away from everybody. She was virtually as dead as the rest of her family.
"Maybe I should be dead," she mumbled, so softly Angel almost didn't hear her.
When she turned her face back to him, he could see the tears shimmering in her eyes. Slowly, one tumbled down, landing on her cheek where it glowed softly from the light of the mood. Angel didn't have time to tell himself not to do it before his hand reached out and his fingers brushed away the solitary tear. His finger remained on her soft skin for a long moment as their eyes met, held.
"Don't say that," he whispered comfortingly, and carefully withdrew his hand though he ached to leave it there. "What about your father? Your friends? The second Willow found out you were alive, she went straight to your house to see you."
"She did?" Buffy asked, staring at him as if trying to discern whether he was telling the truth.
"Yes, she did," he confirmed. "And Spike, and Xander. They've missed you."
"I-I thought," she stuttered tearfully. "I thought they hated me, that the didn't want to see me anymore."
"That's not true," Angel disagreed and went with instinct by putting a gentle hand on her shoulder. When she didn't flinch from the contact, he left it there. "You should talk to them sometime."
"Maybe," she responded uncertainly. Seeing them, talking to them, wasn't something she was sure she could do. It had been so long, and so much had happened. Why would they want anything to do with her?
Angel saw the small frown mar her face, thought she was uncomfortable, and removed his hand from her shoulder. When the frown remained, he asked, "What's wrong?"
"I don't even know your name," she told him.
"Oh," he released a small chuckle. "Angel. Angel O'Meara."
"Angel," Buffy repeated, giving him a small smile. "I like it."
"Thanks."
When he smiled back at her, she felt her heart thud in her chest and quickly looked away from him and toward the ocean. So long, the thought, it had been so long since she'd felt that flutter over a guy. And the last time...she shuddered, memories of that long ago day in the girl's locker room flashing before her eyes.
"I should go," she said quickly, and pushed herself off the sand.
"Okay," Angel answered as he watched her pull on her sandals and begin to walk away. She was a few feet away when he said her name. He waited until she'd turned her head to look at him before speaking again. "If you want...sometime...you can come by my house. I'm usually home."
He thought he saw the faintest curve of her lips, but when she said nothing, only walked away and slipped into the woods, he told himself he was wrong. He'd probably frightened her by being so forward. But she hadn't seemed afraid. The whole time they'd sat talking, she'd seemed comfortable. Still, he shouldn't have told her she could stop by his house. That had been a mistake, but he hadn't really taken the time to think to much before he'd issued the invitation. Nothing he could do about it now.
Long after Buffy had left, Angel remained seated by the water's edge, thinking about the time he'd spent with Buffy. His brow furrowed when he remembered how she hadn't know that everyone believed her dead. Slightly irrational anger welled in him towards Giles. How could the man let his daughter, regardless of the circumstances, think that nobody wanted to see her?
What exactly did Buffy know, he wondered. What did she remember or know about the night of her family's murders? Why did she think Giles kept her virtually locked in her rooms?
He couldn't help the stirring of pity he felt for her. She'd been through so much, and it never seemed to end. A victim was all she was. A victim of rape, of harassment, of everybody else's power. She'd done nothing wrong. Her life had changed one simple day when she'd gone to a swim meet to watch her crush, and she was still living in the nightmare of that day.
They'd cast her as a slut, as some crazy person. As a murderer. That last thought gave Angel pause. A murderer. Every ounce of logic in him told him she could no more have committed murder than he could. Despite what little he knew about her personally, or the little time he'd spent with her, he just couldn't believe it. Which left him with one lasting question. Who really had killed her family?
A raindrop splashed on Angel's cheek, dragging him from his thoughts. Looking up, he saw that the storm he'd predicted earlier was rolling in. Dark, suffocating clouds were easing their way across the sky. If he didn't want to get drenched, he needed go back to his house. So he stood and brushed the sand off his pants. With a last look in the direction Buffy had gone, he crossed the sand and climbed onto his front porch.
He didn't bother to switch the clothes he'd tossed into washer before he'd gone out into the dryer. They could wait until morning. He was exhausted. The day, or rather the night, had been utterly exhausting. All he wanted to do now was sleep, and hopefully peacefully.
The shirt he yanked off was tossed onto the floor heedlessly. His pants followed suit, leaving him in only a pair of boxers. He crossed to his dresser, placing his watch on top. Before he could turn to climb into his bed, he saw the glint of gold in the faint light of his room. He picked up the slim chain, its locket dangling down, and thought of Buffy. She remained in his mind even as he drifted off to sleep.
TBC