AN: Thanks to emeraldsorceress (lol conspiracy indeed! we like our Angelus baaahhddd), Buff, Imzadi (you catch on awfully quick! a little of what you seek is in this chapter and others will come), j-x-2, Blondiegrl, Regan, Willow-189. Thanks for your reviews! :)
Chapter Ten
As Buffy staggered out of the building and into her car, she had planned on driving back to the B&B. But she found that she couldn't, she couldn't move, she felt completely frozen by the encounter and her body was shaking like crazy every time she tries to do something, anything. She couldn't even climb into the backseat to grab the box of complimentary tissues that came with the car. So she did the only thing she could, she curled up on the front seat and sobbed miserably as she did that night when she came out of Darla's townhouse.
She could not stop, she had in her mind willed herself to stop being a fool, yet her tears would not obey her commands nor her pleads and instead stubbornly poured out of her. Years of pain and hatred saw a crack in the strong mask she built and took advantage. She curled up in her seat wallowed in distress that she did not notice the dark shadow which now comes to her car window, covering her in his darkness. He looked in and his heart was broken by the proximity of her in pain and the fact that he could not comfort her, no, more than that, to know that he was the one who caused her the pain. He hated himself more then, if that was possible, he loathed himself more, disgusted by his trespass. He watched cautiously as Buffy kept on sobbing and trembling and the grief turned into the bitter bile rising in his chest. The glass which separates them now seemed no less than the furthest distance that had physically separated them in these eight years.
Finally, after a long time which neither Buffy nor Angelus had kept, Buffy started to straighten up slowly, hesitantly as if she would fall back into the depth again at moments. She noticed the shadow thrown on her by the large figure standing next to her seat. She wiped the tears from her face and pushed the electronic control for the window once, lowering the window only for a couple of centimetres, not enough for anything except audio communication.
"What do you want?" The voice was weak, but there is no mistaking the solid disgust she had for him.
"I…I just want to talk." He force-slipped his fingers into the crack afforded by the few centimetres, sure, it's a tight squeeze, and he WILL lose a few fingers if she pushed that button to close again, but that's what he's betting on that she won't do, and she won't be able to just drive away.
"I don't wanna talk." She glared at his invading fingers, thinking about inserting needles under his fingernails…maybe pushing the WINDOW UP button. But she settled for pushing him back with her own fingers. Their fingers touch, sparkling the tiniest but undeniable existence of a tingle, a sensation that brings back intimate memories of other times when their skin touched. Buffy ignored that sensation of touching him after such a long time, and continued to push; Angelus pushed the first segment of joints in and clutched the window pane like his life depended on it.
"Buffy…she…it…it was nothing, it never meant anything to me, she was never a threat to us, she meant nothing to me." Angelus tried somehow to placate her anger, but not being used to explain himself or do anything so remotely as to plead, he was naturally terrible at it. Yet, the tone he took on, new and vulnerable in Buffy's ear, did make her pause in her motions. Although, it is unclear if it soothed or actually fuelled her resentment.
She looked straight into his eyes, "No. All that meant was she meant nothing to you. It meant nothing to you. But it meant something to me, something damn real. We had a fight Angelus, it's not a viable excuse for fcking other woman."
"It wasn't like that." Here it comes, the usual excuses man had for pigheaded decisions.
"I hear you. On the phone, I heard you on the phone."
"What?"
"It was a set up, Darla phoned me when you showed up on her doorstep, and she never turned the phone off, I heard your voice. I heard everything you did."
Angelus' coloring turned paler and greener than he'd ever been, it's not like he replayed his transgression with Darla everyday, but it had been the afternoon previous to Buffy's disappearance, an event which he thought a lot of. He remembered what he said.
Eight years ago…
"Hello Darla." Angelus had appeared on Darla's doorstep inebriated, he oozed virility and his eyes darkened.
"Hello Angelus." Darla purred, ever since she'd returned from Europe, she had openly seek out Angelus to continue their little arrangement and did not cease even when she found him married. Angelus on the other hand seemed to have no inclination to continue their relationship and was, in fact, ignoring her and avoiding her at all cost, shielding his little wife from Darla and their past. But now, whatever could have brought Angelus back on Darla's doorsteps and in such a state, she is not going to waste it. "Would you like to come in?"
"That would be nice." Angelus entered and Darla snaked to the kitchen under the pretence of fetching him a drink, but actually, she had an extra phone set in the room. "Can I get you something to drink?"
"Scotch neat."
Darla poured the drink and dialled the number she had been calling day and night. As soon as it connects and a familiar voice rings out, she starts the show.
"So, Angelus, what brings you to my place at this hour?" Darla calls out, listening to the other side of the line but positioning the phone so she would not block its receiver. The silence not the dial tone on the other side of the line suggests that her question had caught the listener.
"You know why." His voice was sleek with lust, "I thought you've wanted to continue our arrangement, isn't it why you keep calling and following me around?" Wasn't it nice that Angelus had such articulation and just the right loudness in his speech? Darla secretly glees.
"And what about your little Wifee?"
"Don't think too highly of yourself Darla, it's just a fk."
"Then let's do it in the kitchen." She stowed the phone in a hidden but exposed place.
Soon, there were no more voices, but lustful sounds permeating the place.
"So you knew that she let you know it on purpose, she wants to ruin our marriage! You're just going to let her win?" Angelus knows that he's grasping at straws, but the knowledge that his wife knew about his transgression, no more than that, the fact that she heard and possibly saw the aftermath of it, made him desperate and real fear starts to crawl and threatens to devour him.
"You know very well that it isn't about what she did, but what you did. And no one, no one can push you into doing something you don't want to do, remember?"
"Buffy…Buffy, please…give me another chance, I made a mistake, that's all, I won't do it again…please Buffy." He vehemently pleads, and Buffy was shaken by the desperation that's clear in his voice, but nevertheless, she steeled herself.
She replied in her own not unaffected tone, softly, "It's time to let go Angelus."
After few minutes, Angelus finally unclasped his hand from the window pane. Slowly, he withdrew his touch, and stepped away, his shadow no longer falls on her. Buffy pulled out, and drove back to the inn.
TBC....
