I know it took a while but I'm almost finished the whole story, well, I think I am... keep making things more and more complicated till my brain hurts... anywho on with the story:-)
Balance chp 11: Trouble in NotParadise
No one spoke… none knew what to say. Connor was pale and he was holding Calista tightly as if afraid to let her go. Calista had her arms wrapped around her tummy protectively and she was shaking. Connacht looked at them and said softly
"I know this is a lot but you need to understand why you've got The First and the higher being after you."
"It's because we have the power to destroy them." said Connor quietly.
"No!" said Calida, they looked at her in confusion, "It's not that you've got the power to destroy them just like that, while we four are of the same species it's different. Only when we were at our prime with so many of us could we destroy them and they knew that. The higher being was a Power that corrupted the others to destroy us. Calista is the one who has the power to destroy either The First or the higher being that has infected your friend but not both. You have to choose before the children are born or else all is lost." They were silent as they looked at Calista who looked very small and scared. They suddenly heard Xander whisper
"We already knew that, if these guys have nothing else then this was just a mood downing waste of time." Connacht looked furious and he hissed
"I can't believe I ever defended your small minded, self absorbed kind! You humans will never learn." He threw his hand out at them and there was a flash of light.
They found themselves outside the hotel. Connor whirled around at them and snapped
"Great! Well done Xander!" He looked so angry with him Xander scurried back and hid behind Buffy who for the first time was not eager to defend her friend. Calista didn't try to calm him down, then again she was furious as well, she was shaking and her fists were clenched so tight she was in danger of drawing blood. She was glaring at them all, silent for now but the anger they could see in her eyes was like a bomb set to go off and they couldn't run away from it. The Potentials decided wordlessly to rush into the hotel as if it would be safer inside. They had not been inside two minutes when there was a scream from Dawn, which brought Buffy, Spike, Willow and Xander running while the rest followed a little slower having a hard time of breaking Connor's gaze. He and Calista followed last and almost reluctantly.
When Buffy entered she saw three things, one, Skip was dead, two, one of the potentials was dead, her throat had been slit and finally the guy responsible was standing beside her body. He was a handsome enough young man wearing a preachers outfit, and a bloody dagger in his hands. He smirked at her and said in a southern accent
"Come into my parlour said the spider to the fly." He threw the dagger straight at her with surprising strength. She would never get out of the way in time, when suddenly a blonde and black form leapt in front of her and the dagger hit them instead.
"Spike!" cried Dawn in concern as she rushed over to him. Spike groaned in pain as she pulled out the dagger. Buffy jumped to action and attacked the man. She aimed a roundhouse kick at his head but he caught her foot and with a quick movement Buffy was twirled like a baton and landed in a painful heap on the ground. The man picked her up by the throat and threw her away right over the reception desk.
"Buffy!" she heard Angel call as he ran at the man and punched him in the face. Giles was telling the potentials to move upstairs and leave this to them. Connor jumped at the man and kicked him in the stomach ignoring Calista's shout of "Don't!" As Buffy picked herself up she saw Connor get flung through the window of Wesley's office. She then saw Calista was left wide open as she watched Connor. The man smirked and said
"Well, well, if it isn't the dirtiest whore of all!" and leapt for her. Connor shouted for her to move as he struggled to regain his feet. Buffy rushed forward as Calista tried to run for it. He was almost upon her when she did an incredible leap up into the air and somersaulted backwards, to land awkwardly on her feet. She was in no condition to be doing such things. Connor rushed over to her and made her stand behind him.
"Connor-"
"Just stay back Calista!"
"Connor listen to me!" she shouted angrily, "He's dangerous and you are no match for him! Believe me I know! He almost killed me, the only reason I'm still here is because I ran for it." Connor looked at her in shock as Wesley pulled out a gun and shot the young man in the shoulder. He laughed and taunted them saying
"You cannot stop me! I am Caleb servant of The First Evil, it gives me its strength, its power, I shall destroy all you dirty whores!"
"Oh save it for the cliché evil guy convention!" said Buffy grabbing a sword from the floor where one of the potentials had dropped it. She ran him through the stomach but he still didn't die! Connor moved in once again ignoring Calista's pleas. He pounced on the guys' back and drew his dagger across his neck. Caleb grabbed him and flung him over his shoulder to knock the wind out of him as he hit the ground. He took Connor's dagger and went for a killing stab. Gunn took a swipe with his axe and hit Caleb in the chest. Caleb gasped and Connor managed to roll away to safety. Gunn drew back his axe expecting Caleb to fall down dead. But instead the man raised his head his eyes going black as The First's power grew within him.
"You can't stop The First Evil! It will spread it's darkness around the world and you will tremble before it's almighty-" he got no further as Calista grabbed Gunn's axe and with a swift motion chopped off his head. There was a ringing silence for a few minutes as they let the adrenaline levels go down. Then they started to clear up the mess. Fred got a brush and dust pan and began to sweep up the glass that was on the ground, while Angel, Wes and Gunn hauled Skip's body down to the basement to take it apart before they got rid of it. Buffy and Willow took care of the dead potential and Xander and Spike who was ok now got rid of Caleb's body and head. Dawn went and calmed down the frightened potentials with Faith. Connor went over to Calista who had thrown the axe down and now stood with a hand on her hip and her eyes on the ground as she caught her breath. He put his hand on her shoulder and whispered
"You ok?" she glared at him and pushed his hand away.
"Yeah except I'm disappointed with you. I don't even know why, not like I shouldn't have expected it!" Connor was confused
"What are you talking about?" She pressed her lips together, Connor knew with a nervous feeling that she only did that when she was seriously angry at him. She pushed her hair out of her face and then hissed through clenched teeth.
"What am I talking about? I'm talking about how you never think! How you always have to fight! I told you, I asked you not to fight him, and you did it anyway! You didn't stop to think about how strong he must have been to just send Buffy flying like that, hell, I doubt you even cared, as long as it was a fight you'd be all for it, I mean it's the only thing you ever think of!" Connor stared at her like she had just slapped him across the face. He couldn't believe it, she'd never said anything like this to him, didn't she know him better then that? But Calista wasn't done, "And of course he would've beaten you and you, if you'd lived, would've expected me to come and make it all better, to be strong for you!"
"Because that's who you are!" said Connor heatedly, "You're a strong person!"
"I can't be strong all the time though, but you never see that do you?" snarled Calista, not even bothering to keep her voice down
"And you never see that I don't always want to fight!"
"Pfft! Yeah right, like I'll believe that!" she scoffed. Connor flinched like she'd dealt him a physical blow, "Oh don't bother with that!" she scorned angrily. Angel tried to cut in between their words
"Look I'm not sure what this is about but-"
"Shut up!" they shouted simultaneously before facing off again.
"Do you honestly expect me to believe that you wouldn't jump at the chance to get into another fight?"
"Yes because its true, I don't want to always have to fight, in fact I'd give anything to never have to fight again, but for some reason someone decided that I'll never get that break!" yelled Connor furiously.
"Yeah right, fighting's always come first with you, in Qour-Toth I accepted it because if you didn't then we'd probably never have survived, but I was always hoping that once we got out of there and you killed Angelus, you'd stop!" Lorne stepped between them and said nervously
"Ok I know the both of you are angry at, well, everything, but I think if we just sit down and-" They pushed him away so hard he landed on his backside. Fred rushed over and asked if he was ok, "Oh yeah I'm fine but my kiester'll be bruised come morning!"
"You always said that I had it easy in Qour-Toth, but nothing could have been further from the truth!" shouted Calista
"Yeah right you got to stay out of the fighting!"
"Demon fighting! Maybe. But I got stuck with keeping the peace in our family! If I hadn't then you and Daniel would've killed each other!" As they were arguing Lorne was frantically herding the others out of the lobby with the explanation that if they wanted to survive this storm they had better run for shelter now! Connor and Calista didn't even notice,
"You were the only one of us not affected by the dimension! That's why me and Daniel were always arguing!"
"Well did you ever think maybe it did affect me but I was able to fight it off because I had to? That I had to keep everything I wanted to say to myself so there was some peace between us? Of course it didn't, why would it you were so wrapped up in yourself you didn't care about how I really felt, or what I thought, or anything did you! Did you!"
"Of course I did, how could I not, I love you!" yelled Connor
"There's a difference between love and care!" Calista screamed, "You can love a person but not care about how they're feeling because you're so wrapped up in yourself that you can't see that they're hurting! Damnit Steven!" Connor looked at her in surprise at the use of his original name, the name of the Destroyer. Calista pressed the heel of her hand into the middle of her forehead, she sniffed hard, clearly keeping back the tears, "You thought it was so easy for me to stay in the caves, worrying if I'd ever see you again, with nothing to do. You thought it was so easy for me to clean your wounds and make you feel better after Daniel beat you. Do you have any idea how hard it was to watch him do those things to you and not be able to stop it?"
"You give out to me about being left behind! But you have no idea what it was like having to go out and kill all those demons, to see the light of life go out in their eyes!" snarled Connor, "It may have been hard for you to watch what he did but I went through it, not you, I was the one he beat for no reason!" He briefly thought that the others could probably hear them but he didn't care. Calista looked at him with a sad face, but the fire in her eyes was burning bright. She rubbed her face again and said quietly
"You can't deny that you never asked me if I was ok, unless I'd been injured or until I got pregnant, you never once asked if I was feeling ok after Daniel beat you, after I took care of you and made you smile again." Connor opened his mouth to deny it but froze as he realised she was right, he honestly couldn't remember a single time when he'd asked her if she was alright, unless she'd been injured recently or until they'd found out she was pregnant. She looked at him with sad eyes, the fire was dying. "You don't realise how lucky you are, you come here and even though you were alone when you performed the ritual for Daniel, you had people around you to take care of you, and I didn't, I lost everything in one day, you and Daniel, all alone in a world that was so different, so big and cold, with two beautiful babies growing inside me, who deserved the best, and I couldn't give them anything because I was meaningless to everyone who saw me!" she sat down on the step, her back to the glass doors. She put her face in her hands for a second then lifted her head and rested her chin in them. Her voice kept breaking as she continued "I've been… trying, to not be angry, to stay calm and cool, kept telling myself, can't get worse, but it has." she looked at him, "You, you have a family here Steven, they love you, they support you, I don't have that, I never had, Daniel was your father, the people here are your family, me, I don't have anyone like that, I don't have anyone who'll hold me and let me cry my eyes out." Connor moved to say something but she cut him off, "You can't now Steven, you had your chance, but you failed to see it." Connor looked at the ground, the guilt evident in his eyes. "And now I feel like the bad person." His head shot up again as she stood up and began to pace, some of the anger and fire returning. "I feel bad because you're upset, because I sound so selfish for saying that I want someone to hold me, because I want someone to take my hand and lead me through this instead me having to lead alone." She began to sob, quietly, "But the worst part of it is, is that I hate you for the simple fact that you don't have to carry these babies, you can get away if you need to, but I can't because they're a part of me." Connor looked at her his eyes wide in shock,
"What are you saying?" he whispered, fearing the answer. Calista sobbed even harder, sat down on the step again and brought her knees up to her chest as much as she could, and said
"I'm saying, I… I d-don't want t-them! I don't want these babies. Oh god! I love them so much, but I d-don't want them, I c-can't take it anymore, I just can't!" she couldn't speak anymore as she sobbed, her tears rolling down her cheeks. Connor looked at her and saw her, the real her, the frightened, tired, small teenage girl who was dying inside. He was shaken badly by this, she had always looked like an angel, strong and proud, but sweet and soft. Now he just saw the girl who was so alone, so scared, and it broke his heart. He wanted to go and hold her, but he knew she wouldn't let him, he had been too late for her, he couldn't save her.
He'd lost her!
He fell back as his legs gave way and his back hit the side of the reception desk. He slid down it slowly, shaken to the core.
He'd lost her!
Sniff, sniff oh I feel like a big meanie! Will they make up? Who will Calista fight? Read and review and you'll see!
Night's Darkness
