Chapter Four: Always
Buffy arched her eyebrows at Angel. "Ah, but you admit you do need saving?" she inquired smugly.
"Only occasionally," Angel answered teasingly. He was glad to see a smirk on her face again after the heaviness earlier in the conversation, and couldn't resist flirting with her some more. "of course, you usually are around."
"Well, I'm only happy to return the favor," Buffy replied, light-heartedly. "You have been there to save me a time or two." She grew a little more serious at that. "Most recently from Caleb when you showed up two nights ago. I didn't thank you for that, did I?"
"No, you didn't," Angel chuckled a little. He couldn't help but remember how she'd 'thanked' Xander for bringing her back the first time. "Not properly."
Buffy smirked back, apparently remembering something similar. She stood up, put her arms around his neck, and said, her breath feathering over his lips, "Thank you."
"You're welcome." Angel couldn't resist that invitation; he bent his head and kissed her.
As usual when Buffy and Angel kissed, things grew hot and heavy pretty quickly. After a moment, Buffy pulled back a little and asked, "What are we doing?"
"I think it's pretty obvious," Angel answered, wondering what was going through her mind.
"Just checking," Buffy said, with a quick flash of a smile. "I wanted to do the mature thing and think it through before..."
Angel interrupted her with a kiss and said, "Thinking is over-rated." With that, he moved her back toward the bed, and they collapsed together among the sheets.
Hours later, when Buffy woke once more, Angel was gone. In his place was a note, lying on his pillow, and a drawing of Buffy contentedly asleep in the bed. She felt a brief pang of shock and dismay at the sight, then relief as she looked at the image; unlike the last time she'd found a portrait of herself, this one had been done out of love, not a dangerous obsession. She smiled at it for a moment, then picked up the note and read.
"Buffy,
Stay in bed. Willow will be up shortly with breakfast and clean clothes for you. Come down when you're ready, and we can talk about what to do next.
Always,
Angel."
Buffy smiled. This was what should have happened five years ago, and hadn't.
Her pleasant thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door. "It's me, Willow," her friend announced.
"Come in," Buffy called, folding the note back up and placing it on the nightstand with the picture.
Willow entered with a cup of coffee in one hand, and in the other a pair of bags. One was from a donut shop; the other was a clothes bag from Wal-Mart. Buffy's forehead wrinkled a little at the prospect of wearing something actually bought at Wal-Mart, but she knew beggars couldn't be choosers.
Willow caught the look. "I know, not the most stylish place to buy clothes, but we had to get the basics for all of the girls, and it was cheap," Willow apologized.
"That's all right," Buffy reassured her, reaching for the bag. "Anything's better than having to put that back on," she said, pointing to the stained and battle-damaged top draped over the nearby chair.
Willow looked a little startled at the obvious disarrangement in the room, but didn't say anything. Grateful, Buffy took the chance to escape to the bathroom and take a quick shower. A few minutes later she emerged, wearing a pair of black cargo shorts and a white t-shirt.
"So, you and Angel...?" Willow asked carefully, raising her eyebrows.
Buffy sat down on the bed again, taking a sip from the coffee Willow had brought her and reaching for a donut. After a pause while she inhaled half the first donut, she nodded to her friend. "Yeah, Angel and I," she said.
"So?" Willow prompted, obviously about to burst out of her skin with curiosity.
Buffy rolled her eyes. "It was amazing, of course. I take it you've seen him this morning?"
"Yes, and no, he's not Angelus this time," Willow reassured her, then bit her lip, thinking. "Well, except that Wes told me Angel is the new President and CEO of the Los Angeles branch of Wolfram and Hart-- that seemed kinda fishy to me. He could have just gotten sneakier?"
Buffy sighed. "I knew I should have asked more about that. He mentioned a deal with them last night, but didn't go into any details."
"What kind of deal?" Willow prompted, still looking worried. "It has to be something pretty big, since Wes, Fred, Gunn and Lorne are all going to work there, too."
"Wow," Buffy said, surprised, then shook her head. "It was kind of personal, I don't think it really explains the rest of them joining in. I wonder what's going on," she mused thoughtfully.
Willow shrugged. "Anyway, it was Angel who bankrolled our little shopping spree this morning."
Buffy took another bite of her donut, not really wanting to pursue the conversation any further with Willow, and they sat quietly together as they finished their breakfast. When they were done, Buffy glanced over at the Scythe for a moment, then decided it would be kind of bad form to wander the hotel with it. Not to mention, it would show more trust to Angel if she left her weapon behind in his bedroom.
Angel was waiting in the lobby when she went downstairs. "Good morning, Buffy," he said, greeting her, then approached and gave her an uncharacteristic hug.
She let herself relax into it for a moment, indescribably happy at the gesture, then pulled back and said, "Good morning to you, too."
Angel smiled at her, then looked away as someone with green skin and red horns entered the lobby. She tensed a little, then relaxed as she realized nobody else seemed at all alarmed.
"Buffy, this is Lorne," Angel said, introducing them. "He's an anagogic demon, he reads people's destinies when they sing. Lorne, this is Buffy."
Lorne looked at her with undisguised curiosity. "Ah... Buffy. I've heard almost nothing about you," he said, glancing between her and Angel.
"Nice to meet you, Lorne," Buffy said politely, then looked at Angel, wondering what the demon was doing here. "So, have you had your destiny read?" she asked, guessing at the most probable reason.
"A couple of times," Angel answered, looking embarrassed about something. "Not today, though."
"So you do sing," Buffy said, surprised.
"Not very well," Lorne answered, chuckling as he gestured Buffy over to the comfortable round seat in the middle of the lobby. "He has an unfortunate taste for Barry Manilow."
"Oh really?" Buffy giggled a little, glancing at Angel again. That was something she'd never known about him before. No wonder he looked embarrassed.
Angel avoided her gaze, and Lorne chuckled again before continuing. "So, I assume you need guidance now on what to do after everything that's happened?"
Buffy nodded. "Yeah. Now that Sunnydale's Hellmouth is closed and everything we've ever owned has gone up in dust, what are we supposed to do?"
"Well, choose a song, honey bun, and then we'll see," Lorne answered.
Buffy had to think about that one for a minute, but the perfect song soon came to her. A little misty at the memory, she opened her mouth and began.
"I died, so many years ago
But you make me feel like it isn't so
And why you come to be with me, I think I finally know
You're scared, ashamed of what you feel
And you can't tell the ones you love, you know they couldn't deal
A whisper in a dead man's ear, it doesn't make it real..."
She let her voice trail away.
Lorne stared at her a moment, then sighed. "Wow, that was some song. Not originally yours, though, I take it."
Buffy nodded, glancing at Angel again. "You're right. Spike sang it to me, that night the musical demon came to town."
Angel snorted. "He always was a poet," he said bitterly.
Buffy wasn't in the mood to deal with all that jealous vampire crap at the moment. "It was either that or 'Angel of the Morning'," she snapped in return.
Angel winced, then deliberately turned to Lorne. "Okay. So, Lorne, what did you see?"
Lorne smiled apologetically to Angel, then directed the rest of his commentary to Buffy. "Among the waves of confusion about Angel-cakes here, and another whom I guess is this Spike, I saw you and someone named Giles in Vegas," he said.
"Vegas?" Buffy flinched, startled, strange and disturbing images flashing through her mind.
Lorne nodded, apparently oblivious to the conclusion she'd just drawn. "There isn't a Hellmouth there, but there is a lot of activity there your special skills would be useful for."
"Vegas?" Buffy repeated, baffled now. "But how would I pay the bills there? What would I do for a cover?"
Lorne shrugged, looking a little baffled himself. "I'm getting something about an office supply warehouse...?"
Buffy froze at that, and shared a panicked look with Angel, who also clearly recognized the reference.
"I guess I should be on the look-out for Drusilla, then," Angel said resignedly.
"Yeah," Buffy said, a little stunned. "I can't believe you remembered that nightmare."
"I remember everything about that week," Angel said, softly. "It was... rather eventful."
"Yeah, it was," she agreed, sadly.
"What do you mean about Drusilla?" Wes interrupted them, approaching from the direction of the office. He appeared to have caught the end of their exchange.
Buffy sighed and launched into the explanation. She didn't really want to share all the details of what had been going on, but they'd need to know to understand the reference. "A few days before my seventeenth birthday, I had a dream where Drusilla staked Angel in the Bronze right in front of me. Right before that, my Mom dropped a plate and said, 'Do you really think you're ready?' I didn't think it had been a Slayer dream at first, but then the day of my birthday that last part, with Mom, actually came true."
Angel picked up the thread of the conversation and continued it. "Buffy came to my apartment that morning, after the incident with the plate, to make sure the part with the staking hadn't come true, too. While she was there, I asked her what else she had dreamed that night."
Buffy threw a glance over her shoulder at Willow, who had come downstairs at some point in the last few minutes and was now listening also. "I answered, 'I dreamed Giles and I went to Vegas and opened an Office Supply warehouse,'" she said, finishing the explanation. Willow made a sympathetic face; she'd been the one whose support Buffy had leaned on in her initial freak-out over the dream all those years ago.
"I see," Wes said, thoughtfully. "I suppose it makes sense that Drusilla would show up again now, with Darla gone and Spike dead. That leaves you, Angel, and Drusilla as the last of the line of Aurelius. We should try to find out what happened to her, before she shows up unannounced."
Buffy snorted. "Dru, the evil head of Aurelius-- now there's a scary thought."
While everyone pondered that thought, the remainder of the Sunnydale crew finally came downstairs. Giles, Andrew, and Xander looked rather peculiar together, all in matching sweatsuits; Buffy surmised that they, too, had been casualties of Willow's shopping spree.
"Good morning, Buffy," her Watcher greeted her. "Have you given any thought to what you would like to do next?"
Buffy glanced wryly at Lorne, then nodded. "Yep," she said, confidently. "We're moving to Vegas and opening an office supply warehouse."
Giles blinked at that for a moment, then gave a little frown. "I see. It's all right if you don't know; I assume Angel will not mind if we stay here a few days longer...?" He glanced at the vampire as his statement trailed off, and Angel nodded.
"No-- I mean, yes of course you could stay," Angel answered. "But you won't need to; Buffy was telling the truth."
"I'm sorry, what did you say, again?" Giles blinked, looking back at Buffy.
"Vegas," she said, smirking a little at his discomfort. Ha, and how did he think she'd felt when she found out? "Office supply warehouse, deal with it."
"What she means to say is," Wes put in a little primly, "Our associate, Lorne, is able to read a person's destiny when they sing. Angel informed me that Buffy would be seeking his assistance this morning; if she says you are going to open an office supply warehouse, then I don't doubt that's what Lorne saw."
Buffy made yakking motions with her hand behind her back, and heard a stifled laugh from Willow.
"Dear Heavens," Giles said, still clearly startled. "Las Vegas." He fanned himself absently, as if already anticipating the heat.
"We might actually take you up on your offer of crash space for a few days, Angel," Buffy said, turning back to her sometime lover. "That is, if you can put up with us. Robin and the others will be in the hospital a little while longer, and I'd like us to all be able to go at once."
"I think I can stand it for a few days," Angel said, wryly. "It's not like I need all sixty-eight rooms in this place for myself. Some of them aren't fit for use, of course, but whatever you need is yours."
Buffy knew he meant more by that than just the offer of a roof over their heads, but she didn't want to address that in front of all the others. Last night, and this morning, had been a special time apart for them, a building block toward a more solid future relationship, whether just friends or more, but it was still a little too fragile for public view.
"Thank you," she said simply, with a small smile, then turned back to the others. They had a lot of planning to do.
(end)