AN: I'm a terrible, terrible person! I'm ashamed at how long it took me to post again! This story has so much more to it, if I can ever get my ass in gear to post it... But none of you really care what I write here about my lousy excuses, you just want the story, so go, read on...
July 15-18, 2009
"Hey yeah, you're right, I never noticed the monkey is the only animal cracker to have clothes." Xander discovered as he walked beside Oz in Rosedale cemetery, an open box of the crackers in his hand as he examined each machine punched wheat formed animal.
"It's a conspiracy." The werewolf replied.
"So how'd he get so special?" The one eyed man asked, before popping the cracker in his mouth, the little money pants doing nothing to save him from the inevitable chewing and swallowing all crackers are fated to.
The discussion was halted when Angel yelled quietly to the two men, "Guys, over here!"
The duo hurried over to the living vampire and noted the blood on the ground he was pointing to. Instead of the usual shade of red that was common to humans, it was a bright orange. "Well I guess he went that-a-way" Xander added, jerking a thumb in the direction of the splatter, but the motion was lost on the others as they were already heading in the direction the droplets indicated.
After a few minutes of following the blood trail, "Keep an eye open, this thing is strong." Angel warned as the trio patrolled through the seemingly empty graveyard. At least it always seemed empty, until a skeletal hand clawed out of the ground and wrapped itself around your ankle.
"Yeah, go ahead and make one-eyed jokes at the one-eyed guy's expense. I see how it is, well I see half of it anyways." Xander ribbed, however he noticed his kind of humor was mostly lost on his present company. 'Maybe I should have stayed with the girls for their 'ladies night'…hmm… scantily clad females, pillow fights, popcorn…oh who am I kidding? Three of those involved are practically family and the fourth is my girlfriend, fantasizing about her is a relationship requirement.'
Many of the resident slayers of Angel Investigations were seasoned slayers now, most that hadn't gone home after 'graduation' had moved to the renovated Hyperion Hotel, which was now officially open as not only for both temporary and permanent housing for slayers, but also functioned as a sanctuary for full or part demons who were not a threat to humans but had nowhere else to go.
A large group of graduate level slayers were stepping up patrols all over the city. The highest focus of patrols centered in the areas around Hemery High School, where the new Hellmouth had opened. However demon activity was active though out the city, and since LA was just under 470 square miles in total land area, roughly 44 miles long and 29 miles wide, a complete sweep on a nightly basis took a lot of slayers starting in various locations.
As Xander's mind continued to wander, he wasn't even sure why the three of them were even here, him much less. He figured Angel could handle patrolling and finding this demon alone, he'd already wounded the demon they were chasing, and if not, a wolfed out Oz was enough backup if it was needed. 'Guess the ladies really didn't want me hanging around with them…' he thought dejectedly.
A loud thump and crack snapped Xander back to the real world; he looked up in time to see Angel sailing though the aie and end abruptly with a head first impact into a mausoleum. 'Oh that's going to leave a mark.'
Oz, worried for his friend, shifted form, letting out the savage power of his inner werewolf. The shape shifter charged the demon, covering Angel as the living vampire slowly and shakily regained his feet. The darker haired man trying to blink the stars from his vision.
Xander helped the dizzy living vampire to stand, wincing at the freely flowing gash running along Angel's forehead and the sizable crack in the stone wall from his impact with it. 'Well, I guess Buffy wasn't bluffing about Angel having a thick head.'
Taking a shallow breath, Angel quickly swallowed down the wave of nausea, and shook his head to clear his still spinning vision. "Okay, I admit, not my best move."
The force of the blow had temporarily stunned him, causing his sword to fall from his numbed fingers. Xander bend over and picked it up, he not having as much difficulty moving as the one who'd just been hit. He handed the sword to the still shaky man, offering "Well if you think you look bad, check out the wall."
"Yeah, well, I'll make up for it in round two." Angel muttered as he lunged back into the fight just as Oz was tossed aside by the large muscular creature they'd been hunting.
The wolf had gone flying though the air, like Angel had, and narrowly missed Xander as he yelped and jumped aside. Oz's landing was hard, but bounding off the packed earth wasn't not nearly as bad as hitting stone.
Angel's demon was flooding his system with furious energy, fueling a vicious offence. He fought the beast like a man possessed, 'not far from the truth', Xander thought idly as he watched for an opening. In the current fight, Xander knew he'd only be in the way if he tried to help. Last thing he wanted was to become a distraction and get one of them hurt or killed.
After dodging a blow intending to take off his head, the living vampire lifted his leg high and kicked the beast square in the nose, causing the stunned creature to lose balance and stagger back.
Oz, now returned to man form so he could wield opposable thumbs, lunged with his own sword, impaling the demon from behind. The sharpened blade tore clean though the beast's chest as momentum propelled it backwards from Angel's kick.
Not to miss out on the deathblow, Xander let a few bolts fly from his crossbow, both hitting their marks in the creatures side and shoulder. The demon roared out it's pain before collapsing to the ground at the partial vampires' feet.
"Well that was a total blast; but can we go back to the girls now?" Xander asked them, much preferring his scantily clad woman in a pillow fight fantasy to wandering around dark cemeteries with two other guys and various creatures trying to eat them.
"Huh? Uhh, yeah... sure." Angel muttered as he held a hand to his aching head, his brain still felt like jello from the original blow.
The three turned and starting walking, Oz and Xander helping support Angel who didn't seem to realize he needed the help to keep upright.
'Great, there will be thunderbolts raining down on us from hormone-bomb-Buffy for bringing her husband back with a concussion.' Xander thought worriedly as they headed off in the direction of the Summer's residence.
Satisfied their job for the night was finished, the three men turned towards the direction of home. "Is it just me, or did that thing looked like a mutated super-villain from planet of the apes?"
They'd been walking away from the body, the two demonic men content with silence, however Xander continued to babble on, at least until Angel gasped and doubled over in sudden pain. The other two turned towards him as Angel stared dumbly down at his abdomen, where the terrible sensation was originating, and finding three long claws protruded grotesquely from his gut.
Oz reacted immediately as the sharp scent of blood and demon filled the air, his own demon instincts in overdrive as he swung his sword around, beheading the not-quite-so-dead-as-they-thought demon.
At the loss of its head, the creature's death spasm wretched Angel from where he was impaled on its claws and sent the injured man hurling backwards into a nearby tombstone. His already bloodied head banged into the solid limestone grave marker before gravity then dropped him down onto the damp grass.
"Angel!" Xander called out as he panicked, he and Oz rushing over to the unmoving man and dropped down beside him, praying he was still alive. Oz carefully rolled Angel onto his back to see the damage as the only pure human thought 'God, I hope he doesn't try to eat me...'
The three heavily bleeding stab wounds to the living vampire's gut weren't all to reassuring.
"Oh, Buff's so going to kill us." If Xander thought bringing Angel home with a concussion would bring hell and brimstone from Buffy, bringing him home dead…that wasn't something he wanted to consider, especially not with Buffy pregnant and with two young children to boot.
Xander's first instinct was to call the Med-Ward, but then remembered Cassidy was on leave to Boston for a Medical conference and wouldn't be back for a few more days. Currently there wasn't anyone qualified enough to treat triple penetrating abdominal trauma at AI. Looking blankly at his cellphone for a moment, he then defaulted to the next best option and dialed 911 for a general ambulance, as he knew dragging the injured man across town to the ER wouldn't be feasible.
It wasn't as ideal place for someone other than human to receive medical care, but a human based hospital was the only real option when time was in the essence.
Oz was still kneeling on Angel's other side and pressing his jacket tightly against the wounds in his friend's gut, trying unsuccessfully to stem the bleeding. "Angel? Hey man can you hear me?" The now black haired werewolf tried to rouse his unconscious friend, but the impact to the tomb had knocked Angel out cold…and getting colder as his blood flowed into the grass beneath him.
'You best not die.' Xander thought it as he winced as the amount of blood pooling under the unmoving man's body, and also getting nervous that Angel's demon might decide he needed a blood flavored snack and try to take a bite of out him.
Despite the danger, Xander stayed close and on the line with the 911 dispatcher, only half paying attention as he following her commands to keep pressure on the wounds. The line fell silent and Xander realized the call dropped, his cellphone screen showing a blinking battery before falling black. Panic flooded in, 'Oh shit, did they get the address!' He tried re-dialing to no avail, but just when he was going to start running for help the comforting sounds of the sirens was heard, validating the important information had indeed gone though.
As much as he desperately wanted to call Buffy to let her know what was going on, he couldn't. Besides, what would he tell her? He had no idea if Angel would be okay or what hospital or if the guy would eat someone on the way...
He decided in person would be best. 'Granted Buffy can't pound me into mush over the phone...'
The ambulance pulled to the gated entrance of the graveyard, sirens now off but the red and white lights casting the gravestones in an eerier light than the crescent moon's pale glow. Oz and Xander had managed to half carry, half drag Angel's dead weight the few hundred feet to the road, so the vehicle wouldn't need to navigate though the graves to collect him.
The medics quickly exited the vehicle with their needed tools, checking the wounded man's vitals and applying large amounts of gauze to the still seeping holes while hoisting the pale body onto the gurney and loading it into the back of the ambulance. The medics were moving quickly as they inserted various needles and tubes, adding IVs, oxygen and hooking up monitoring equipment.
It was like the whole Med-Ward packed into the back of a van.
"Adult white male, about 30's, unresponsive, multiple penetrating trauma to the lower abdominal, severe hemorrhaging." The paramedic repeated into his radio as they tended the oozing punctures. One of the medics, a young brunette woman, broke from her work on Angel and addressed the two staring Scooby's. "Sorry guys, we don't have room in the back and your friend here is critical, we need to go now." The woman didn't wait for a response from them before slamming the door shut as her partner climbed back into the driver's seat.
They looked worriedly to each other, both feared Angel would vamp on the unsuspecting medics when his demon decided it needed blood, but the vehicle sped away before they could warn them.
In the few moments before the sirens were switched on, they could both hear the wail of the newly hooked up equipment that was already alarming as the truck sped away.
Xander and Oz looked dumbly after it a moment before catching the shock on each other's faces, the taller cursing as they turned and began the two mile run back to the Summers' house.
...
The happy smile that had been on Buffy's face dropped from her lips the moment she saw Xander and Oz burst into the back door of her home from the kitchen and into the living room, she could already feel her husband wasn't with them.
Fear stabbed though her gut as the auto-response to worry kicked in. She knew something was wrong, and it wasn't based solely on the two panting for breath in her living room or the fact their hands were covered in blood.
For the last half hour she'd been thinking of calling her husband, something had been nagging at her 'danger' nerve, but she'd been hoping it was just been another baby induced indigestion swirling her stomach.
She hated being right.
"Where's Angel?" Were the first words out of her mouth as she pushed herself up off the couch, her six months of baby belly already dampening her agility.
As the boy's sucked much needed air into their burning lungs, Oz panted one word, "Hospital."
That one word was more than enough motive, Buffy was already grabbing her keys off the hook, "Dawn baby-sit!" she ordered in a hurry as she vanished out the door to the garage, where the truck was parked.
Xander, Oz and Willow followed in the slayer's wake, leaving Dawn and Xander's new girlfriend Debbie to watch the children.
Debbie looked over at Dawn with a bland expression, "I'm starting to see a pattern with you guys."
Dawn laughed humorlessly, her thoughts worrying on what happened to her brother-in-law.
Willow ended up driving the Summer's SUV, the guys were still recovering from the long run and Buffy's driving skills were...well...not skilled... much less so when she was worried sick about her husband.
The Slayer had ordered a complete step by step summery of the events leading to this sudden hospital visit from the two men in the backseat, especially why a human hospital, which put the poor staff at risk.
As they told the tale, Buffy lost most of the color in her face.
"He was stabbed?" She asked, more to herself that her friends, she kept repeating the vicious wounds he'd received from the demons Cerberus and Thanatos, both with swords stabbing into her husband's body. 'Angel survived those, he'll be okay. He has to be okay.' She thought as she absently rubbed her six month baby bump. She took the corresponding kick as agreement.
She tried not to think about the fact Angel had been able to consume blood immediately after both the impalement's to boost his demonic healing.
Twenty long traffic riddled minutes later, Buffy ran into the ER and directly to the receptionist's counter. "My husband, he was stabbed. Where is he? Is he ok?" she demanded almost in tears. The older woman behind the counter looked sorry for her as she noticed her belly. "Um…Let's see. What is his name, Honey?" She asked in a calm voice.
"Angel, Angel Summers." Buffy replied, wiping the tears quickly from her face. A minute later Willow, Xander and Oz caught up to her. "Hey Buff, what's the word?" She turned to them, "She's looking him up."
The receptionist typed into the computer but frowned when she looked back to the gang. "I'm sorry, his name doesn't show up. Are you sure he was brought here?"
They all looked at Xander as he slapped his hand to his head, "The call, it dropped when my battery died, they got the address but must not have gotten his name."
At the glare from the others he added, "What? The phone died, what else was I going to do?" He defended quietly to the gang. Willow commented about keeping it charged, Buffy added about using Angel's.
Ignoring the criticism, he turned his attention to the woman and explained, "Look, I called about an hour ago from Rosedale Cemetery. My friend was stabbed."
With the forming of a scowl, the woman typed into her computer and pulled up the recent records, "Ok I have one stab victim in the last hour, that must he him. Let's see, ok he's in…oh." She stopped talking and looked sadly at the screen.
"What?" Buffy demanded, terribly afraid of the words to follow.
"I…I'm sorry to have to tell you this Honey, he passed away in surgery." Said the receptionist sending them a sympathetic look.
Buffy looked back at the woman blankly, her mind having flat lined. 'Passed away? As in dead?'
Willow wrapped an arm around Buffy's shoulders, "Oh god, Buffy. I'm so sorry." But the slayer wasn't going to listen to sympathy. 'Angel isn't dead, he can't be dead. He'd been stabbed before. He wouldn't leave me, I know he's alive. I would feel it if he died. Wouldn't I?'
"I want to see him." She said sternly, keeping a tight grip on the emotions that threatened to overtake her. The older woman frowned, "I'm sorry, Mrs. Summers, but that won't be possible until morning when the medical examiner gets in." The Slayer shook her head, "No, I can't wait till then. I need to see him now!"
The receptionist looked uncomfortable, "He's already been moved to the morgue. There is nothing I can do. It's locked each night. I'm sorry. The M.E gets in around 7am if you want to come back."
Buffy nodded, not giving in but needing time to think of her next move as she and whispered "Thanks" and walked away to sit for a moment. The gang follow her, all of them too stunned for words. They sat in the worn blue plastic lined chairs in the waiting area, looking and feeling lost in shocked silence.
Buffy was torn. 'Go home? Or break into the morgue? Maybe it was the wrong guy, maybe Angel was already heading home? I should wait for him at home, he always comes home.'
They were about to leave when the receptionist ran up to them, "Oh good you're still here. Dr. Monroe performed his surgery; he has keys to the morgue if you still want to identify the…ahh…if you want to see your husband." She quickly amended when she saw the words 'identify the body' were bringing tears to Buffy's eyes.
"Yes please" Buffy whispered, her voice too tight for regular speech. A few minutes later the four Scoobies stood in the morgue, the doctor droned on about the unsuccessful surgery, unaware his words were lost on them. The three Slayerettes stood back, allowing their distraught friend her space, but not too much in the event she need support.
Dr. Monroe unlatched the lock on drawer #32 and opened the small metal door. A moment later, a tray was pulled out on the attached track and a light gray body bag was suddenly laying before Buffy on a cold stainless steel slab.
Buffy blinked at the covered corpse, her mind spinning. Her whole future was wrapped in the thick layers of polyester and vinyl before her. It wasn't real yet, but everything was about to come crashing in once the body was exposed, and the urge to bolt hit her hard. Her legs shook, but the slayer stood tall, she wasn't sure what she was going to do if Angel really was in that bag, if he was dead... could evil soulless Angelus be back? And would she need to stake him? 'Can I? Can I really kill him…again?'
Without preamble, Dr. Monroe quickly unzipped the zipper on the body bag and pulled back the flap to reveal the face of the deceased man. "After the positive identification, the staff will need you to fill out some medical forms and waivers."
Buffy's eyes had tightly closed as he'd reached for the zipper, delaying the inevitable for a few precious seconds more, as the surgeon spoke, she braced herself and slowly opened her eyes.
Relief.
She choked out a humorless laugh, "Oh thank god." Buffy spoke as her hand when to her heart, her entire body sagging in relief.
The doctor looked confused and mildly alarmed at her reaction.
A moment later, "That's not my husband." Buffy clarified for him as she started down at the older blond gentleman that lay on the slab before her.
His face fell, "Oh", he nodded, looking awkwardly down at the unidentified man. "Well, that's…good." It wasn't actually for him, that meant he still had a John Doe on his hands.
"Defiantly" Buffy agreed as worry returning she looked towards her friends, Xander in particular, "But if he's not in here, where is my husband?"
Ten minutes later, but what felt like an hour, Buffy stood pacing back at the receptionist's counter as they tried to locate Angel. After conferring with the receptionist and Xander, they knew Angel had been taken to this hospital as it was the closest and records showed the ambulance responding to a call at Rosedale cemetery.
The records proved the ambulance returned here with a John Doe, so the thought of Angel's demon attacking the paramedics was null.
"I don't know what to tell you Mrs. Summers, no other stab victims checked in tonight." The frustrated receptionist told her, scanning her records for the fifth time and growing annoyed with these pushy people.
Oz was pondering. Angel had crazy fast healing at times, like when receiving blood or fluids intravenously, he wondered if the trauma could have healed en route to the hospital. Deciding move on that theory, he walked up and asked a simple question, "Where there any other unknown males brought in over the last hour?"
The woman eyed him skeptically as she glanced at the digital chart, "Umm…well, yes, just one. But he had minor abdominal lacerations and a head wound."
Oz nodded, his satisfaction felt but not apparent in his face or voice as he nodded, "Great, that's the one we need to see."
Buffy looked up, suddenly hopeful her search could be at an end and her lover was would found alive and well.
Shrugging, the woman behind the counter pulled up her records, "Umm…okay, I guess you can check, but the wounds don't match what you told us…John Doe #3 is in room 236." The receptionist called the nurse that was currently on duty on the second floor recovery section and she led them up the elevator and into the recovery floor.
A few minutes of anxious waiting followed the slow ride up, then time seemed to slow further as they stood before the door to 236.
The blonde nurse opened it and the group followed her inside.
None of them expected what they found.
The room was empty, at first glance anyways.
Buffy looked over at the bed, her heart fluttered in her chest.
It wasn't obvious to anyone except those who dealt with the undead on a daily basis, but there was a conspicuous pile of dust lay on the bed, a stake laying next to it.
"Hmm, that's odd. He was here not too long ago. Let me check with the other nurses." nurse Heidi offered, upon seeing the bed and bathroom were both empty.
The gang picked up on the vampire connection but couldn't tell the nurse what they knew, instead, they thanked her for showing them the room and she left to alert the residing nurse that the room was empty and the patient was missing.
Once the nurse was gone, Buffy quickly walked over to the pile of vampire remains on the twin bed and examined them.
"Well that can't be him, Angel wouldn't dust...you know, cause he's all alive and such…right?" Willow asked no one in general, her stomach tightening and her brain was trying to remind her of the facts.
Buffy normally would have agreed with her if something hadn't caught her eye. With her heart sinking, she automatically reached into the pile and pulled out the shiny object that glimmered in the light.
It was Angel's silver Claddagh wedding ring.
She remembered the last time it was off her husband's finger. "Before you put that back on, you damn well better understand that doesn't come off again for any reason short of losing that finger."
All the emotions and strain caught up to her suddenly, and for the first time in memory, Buffy fainted.
Luckily the werewolf standing beside her caught the pregnant blonde before she could drop more than a foot.
...
Room 236, Twenty minutes ago:
Angel slowly opened his eyes, not that it helped much, everything was unfocused and blurry.
His head ached, his stomach hurt, his head pounded, his muscles were sore, his head throbbed.
"Uhh" He groaned as he carefully rolled over and forced his aching body up to a sitting position, a hand gingerly exploring the mostly closed wounds in his abdomen as his bruised muscles strained to keep him upright.
Looking around didn't help alleviate his discomfort, he was still feeling confused, not knowing where he was, why he hurt or how he'd gotten there.
The room didn't look familiar, white walls with white cabinets, light grey and white tiled floor, white drop tiled ceiling, rough white linens on the bed, and what completed the room was a god awful tacky blue curtain. "What the hell happened? Why am I in a hospital?" He grumbled as he quickly pulled the unwanted IV from his arm and the sticky pads from his chest.
A more serious question suddenly came to mind, "Who am I?"
A creaking noise caused him to look up as the door opened, a smiling nurse walked in, "Sir, please stop removing the equipment and lie down." She ordered as she walked up to the bed, her dark eyes throwing a dangerous look at him.
With his vision still blurred, he blinked a few more times, trying to recognize a face, but as he looked at her, something felt…wrong…about her.
Shaking it off as stress, he complied to her request and laid back down, hoping the woman would tell him who he was and why he felt like he'd been hit by a rocket carrying a ton of bricks.
He felt an unsteady feeling rising in his gut, then she leaned in closer, her breath filling his nostrils with death and rot.
"You're looking better." She smiled sweetly at him as she bent over him. "Let's see what we can do to fix that."
In the span of a second, her face changed, it wasn't human anymore but something demonic, Angel felt it more than saw it.
The dark haired man blinked up at her with a look of confusion as she brought a sharpened length of wood down towards his heart.
Instincts kicked in, ones he didn't even knew he had as he rolled to the left to avoid the unprovoked attack. The falling stake barely missed him as the momentum buried it into the mattress where his bare chest had been a split second beforehand.
"What the hell?" He expressed for the second time in two minutes as he tried to dodge the crazed creature suddenly trying to kill him. His vision still wasn't clear, but he could tell her face wasn't human. 'Is this some kind of drug-induced trip?' The thought bounced around his head as he panicked and fought the way too strong nurse off him.
The demonic nurse charged at him again, but he managed to deflect the attacks, he didn't know how he knew, but he didn't question it at the moment. If it saved his ass, he'd ask why later...if at all.
With a growl, she lunged at him, but his leg snapped up, kicking her away from him. However, as she fell she grabbed for his hand to catcher her balance, accidentally pulling the ring off his finger as her momentum pulled her backwards.
He didn't even notice it in the confusion and adrenaline rush.
In the next moment, he grabbed her around the throat and tossed her onto the bed and before he even knew what he was doing, he pried the stake from the mattress and plunged it into her heart.
She screeched as her bones became visible, then she was nothing but dust.
And just like that, it all came back to him.
'Vampire. That's what she was...it's what I am too. A soulless killing beast. A blood rat. A demon.' Angel felt a wave of nausea wash over him. 'No', he muttered to himself. 'No, I'm not…I can't be.'
Suddenly his only thought was, 'I need to get out of here.'
Carefully opening the room door and peaking down both sides of the corridor, his sensitive ears picked up on voices in a few rooms around him, some alarms coming from another room even further away, but no one was currently at the nurses' station.
Knowing it wouldn't be long before someone else came by, and he worried it would be another murderous vampire, he hurried down the hall before ducking into a room with a 'no patients allowed' sign. The room turned out to be a nurse/doctor locker room and he took the opportunity to riffle through the lockers until he found some garments close to his size.
Some poor doctor would end his shift to find his jeans, a shirt and shoes missing.
'Sorry pal, I need these more than you.' He thought as he quickly slipped them on in place of the bare-assed johnny he'd woken up in, and then walked casually down the halls towards freedom. Dressed like a patent, he'd never make it ten feet, but in regular clothes...he was a free man.
Some of the nurses now at the station noticed him as he strolled unhurriedly along, smiling at the handsome man as he passed. He nodded to them, a brief smile back. Hospital visitors walked the halls every day, no one looked at him twice, well a few women perhaps.
While no one was looking, he grabbing an unwatched black raincoat off a chair as he passed thought the waiting room. A minute later he slipped out of the building thought the sliding glass doors into the cool dry night.
The outdoors was just as unrecognizable as the indoors, but he didn't loiter, just walked off into the shadows, unsure where he was even going, as long as it was away from where he'd been.
In the shadows off to the far left, a pair yellow eyes watching him, following him as he vanished into an alley. "Sir." The owner of the eyes spoke too softly into a cellphone for the retreating living vampire to overhear, "Lola must have failed, he's still alive."
Though the connection, the demon listened to his master, "Lola was no match for Angelus, it was a long shot anyways. Follow him Roland, but remain undetected."
"Yes Master." Roland agreed before disconnecting and tucking the phone back into his pocket before follow the living vampire at a safe distance.
...
Willow patted Buffy's face with a wet facecloth, the cool and damp slowly woke the Slayer.
"Angel?" She asked groggily, her hand went automatically to her stomach as she regained consciousness, after finding her baby was fine, she then looked down at her tightly closed fist, slowly opening it to reveal the ring.
The blonde choked out a sob as she looked down at the symbol of her marriage. Mind filling with the memories associated with the small piece of jewelry. "With this ring, I offer you my hand, my heart, and my soul as I know they will be safe with you."
Willow could see the shimmer of tears in her friend's eyes and pulled her into a tight supporting hug, "Oh God Buffy, I don't know what to say."
Not knowing what else to do, she hugged Willow back, needing the comfort of her best friend.
After a few moments, Buffy composed herself and stood up, looking around the room for clues, for anything that would tell her what happened and where he husband was now.
There was a plastic bag in the cubby hole by the door. Pulling it down, she opened it and looked inside, finding the things Angel had on him when he'd been brought in. Clothes, a few folded bills, a stake, etc…
Oz stepped closer, eyeing the contents, the scent of blood drifted up from the bag, Angel's blood, drying on the folded clothes.
Buffy's mind was racing, 'Angel was here...question is, where is he now?'
They all looked around again, there were signs of a struggle, but nothing obvious beyond the death of a vampire of the bed...or someone with a vampire inside...
With a tear in her eye, Buffy clutched the bag of her husband's possessions tightly to her chest and walked out the door.
There was nothing else left of Angel in the room, and Buffy couldn't stand to be so close to the ash pile.
Her face was set in stone, however, inside she felt like a tire loosing air.
The Scooby's numbly followed after her, none of them willing to be the first to speak.
Two minutes later they were in the car, the silence was smothering.
"So…" Xander began but Buffy cut him off with one word. "Don't."
They continued in deafening silence all the way back to the Summer's house.
...
Buffy stormed thought the door of her home, still as stone faced as when she awoke from her faint. Dawn wasn't in the room and she felt eternally grateful for it; she didn't want to talk right now. No, not now, she couldn't right now. 'I won't cry. I can't. Crying would be giving up. It would be accepting he's dead.'
She made a bee line upstairs and into the kid's bedrooms. She looked in on Katie first, a soft smile as she watched her daughter sleep, then looked in on Liam.
Before any of the adults could say anything to her she walked into her, no their bedroom, Angel wasn't dead, she wouldn't let herself believe it, and locked the door. She sat on the bed, Angel's side of the bed. The bag and ring held tight against her. She thought of what it would be like to never see him again, of him never knowing the name of the baby growing inside her, never seeing their children grow up.
She wouldn't believe it, yet she couldn't help but feel like it might be true.
As her mind fed her horrible images of an Angel-less and empty future, slow silent tears slid unchecked down her face. 'He's not dead. He'll come back. He always comes back.' She ignored the knocks on her door. 'He'll come back.'
...
The sewers were cold and damp; he remembered those two sensations never used to bother him, but for some reason it did now. He felt as though he should be warm, he should be holding someone warm, and he should feel loved, be surrounded by love.
He certainly didn't feel loved at the moment. 'I'm a monster, who could love a monster? Why would someone love me? I don't deserve love.' He glanced down at his ring finger, it was empty. He rubbed his thumb over the spot, he thought he remembered feeling a weight there, there should be something there, but the harsh reality was, there wasn't.
He shrugged and pushed the feelings aside.
Angel didn't know where he was going, but he felt that he needed to keep moving. If he stayed still, his emotions began to overpower him.
In the few hours since he left the hospital, he started seeing flashes, jumbled images of his past.
All he could remember was pain, an entire existence of pain.
He remembered killing.
He remembered enjoying it.
He remembered getting his soul back, being cursed by gypsies for murdering their favorite clan daughter.
He felt the guilt of that overwhelm him.
At least that's what he thought made him feel so guilty.
He felt as if he were letting someone down, as if he should be someplace right now. But mostly, he felt nauseous about all the images in his mind; part of him didn't want to remember. He didn't want to see more innocent faces screaming back at him in fear as he smiled and drank away their lives.
A loud band echoed through the once quiet tunnel when his fist slammed into the rounded metal wall. A trail of blood and the pain of his broken knuckles didn't faze him. He wiped the salty tears from his eyes, not caring it left a smear of blood across his face. He took a deep breath and walked on.
He knew something wasn't right with him, he could feel his heart beating, and he was breathing, and warm. Granted, he didn't feel warm, he felt cold, his soul felt cold.
Alone.
He smashed his broken knuckles into the wall again, hoping the pain would drive back the guilt and the frustration that he couldn't remember anything but pain. 'Why, how, when? Who am I missing? I know my heart is crying out for someone, but I can't even picture their face.'
He found a dry spot off to the side and slid down the wall. 'In the morning, I'll remember, my memory, it will come back. It will come back.'
"It will come back." He whispered to himself.
He sat in dark silence for hours, but sleep never found him.
...
Buffy slowly rolled over; she felt cold and wanted to snuggle with Angel, her favorite blanket. Her hands found empty space as she groped for her personal heater.
With a start, she sat up, realizing he wasn't there, that the cold bed indicated he never had been.
'He didn't come back last night?' She had thought for sure she would wake this morning, and it would all have been a nightmare. Or he would have snuck in sometime during the night and she would wake with his arms around her.
Every shred of her heart had hoped he'd been on his way home after the vampire fight in the hospital, that he was fine, shaken up but otherwise alive and healthy.
'He didn't come back.'
She slid to the edge of the bed, her feet resting on the cold floor.
Despite the heat of summer, everything felt cold this morning.
"Angel." She whispered as a tear rolled down her cheek as she took his ring off the nightstand, rubbing her thumb over the heart.
She pushed the tears aside, put on her game face and got cleaned up. "Katie and Liam need me to focus." She told herself as she began their normal daily rituals.
There was no need to fall apart, Angel would be home soon. He wasn't dead.
After showering and dressing, she checked down the hall but found the kids bedrooms were empty, she figured Dawn had spent the night and was helping with them.
As she came down the stairs her eyes looked towards the couch, as last ditch hope Angel would have conked out there if he had come home really late, or injured, since it had happened before.
Hope flashed when she saw a man was indeed on the couch, but then her mind realized it was Xander sleeping there, not her missing husband.
'Of course he's not on the couch, I would have felt him if he was this close.'
She numbly walked into the kitchen, however hearing the kids talking coaxed a smile from her lips, the only light in her life at the moment came from them.
"Hey Buffy" Willow greeted the slayer as she came up to her, wrapping her in what should have been a comforting embrace.
Buffy really wanted a hug, but not from her friend, she wanted one from Angel.
As much as Willow wasn't Angel, the hug was nice and she went through the motions of accepting it and returning it.
Dawn wrapped her arms around her next, "Listen Buffy, we'll figure this out. We'll research today, get some info. Don't lose hope yet." The younger Summer's encouraged.
Buffy nodded, but didn't actually feel any better because of the words, she'd planned on doing what Dawn suggested anyways.
A tug at her legs caused her to look down, her children hugging her. A real smile tugged at her lips for a moment and she knelt and hugged and kissed them both good morning.
"Good morning my little monsters, you having aunty Dawn and aunty Willow make you breakfast?"
They nodded their enthusiasm, at least until Katie blindsided her.
"Mommy, where's daddy?"
The question felt like a hot knife stabbing into her heart. Buffy took a deep breath; she knew the kids could feel the tension in the room.
"He umm, he had to go on a trip." The lie came out way too...lie-ish.
Katie looked back at her, for a four year old her mind was far beyond her few years, those brown eyes the mirror of her father's. "Is that why he didn't come home last night?"
Sometimes Buffy wished her daughter was less observant, "Yeah, he had to leave suddenly, he didn't even get to pack."
Katie blinked back at her mother, not convinced.
Liam asked, "When's daddy coming back?"
The question she had really feared, she couldn't tell them that she didn't know. That would frighten them too much. Pasting on the best smile she could manage, "Soon, I'm not sure exactly when, but he'll be back soon." She hugged them tight, "He'll be back." She whispered near tears. 'God I hope I didn't just lie to them.'
Dawn chose that moment to say, "So who wants to go to Fun World today?" Katie and Liam suddenly became their actual ages of four and three again, eyes wide in anticipation. "Me! Me!" They chorused.
Buffy caught Dawn's eyes and mouth her 'Thank you.'
With a nod, she herded the hooting kids out to get them dressed and ready for a day of happy distraction.
Willow gave her friend a reassuring smile as she went to rouse Xander, intending to send him along with Dawn and the kids.
Finally alone in the kitchen, Buffy stood at the island, eyes unfocused as she looked around, years worth of morning memories flooding her mind.
She wasn't hungry, but she was pregnant, she knew she couldn't neglect their unborn. Shoving her emotions down, she wishing it wasn't so easy to do after so much practice.
Being the Slayer made her strong, she hadn't the need to rely on that strength as much since Angel had come back into her life, but it was still there.
With all the emotions battling for dominance in her head, she really wished she could slay something right now.
'Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love that a part of Angel is inside me, growing within me, but the trade-off of not slaying for the duration of the pregnancy sometime drives me a little crazy'.
She understood why he wouldn't let her fight, knowing the jeopardy it would put her and the baby in. High kicks and tumbles did not mix well with an extended uterus. She knew even if she went untouched by the enemy, the physical roughness of fighting could be enough to cause a miscarriage. She would never risk that, ever. Her mind stayed on her baby as she searched the fridge for something to eat. 'I can't think about him…I just can't. It hurts too much.'
Grabbing a yogurt, she dug a spoon from the drawer by the sink and mixed the fruit off the bottom, already planning on who would research what and find out where her husband was.
...
He knew it was dark again, he could smell the sun as it disappeared from the world above. He got sorely to his feet; he had sat awake the rest of the night and the entire day, just trying to block the faces of his victims from his mind. He was about to move on when he felt a presence. Someone else was in the tunnels, more than one, and they defiantly weren't human.
He stood up straighter and put on his most intimidating face as a group of ten vampires and three demons surrounded him.
"Hello Angelus." The supposed leader called out as he stepped forward. "Haven't seen you lurking in these parts for a long time now."
The vampire waited patiently for Angel to make a move.
Angel didn't even blink.
'Do I know this guy?' Angel wondered, searching though his long memory and not finding any of the vamps or demons around him familiar.
Angel stepped forward, a few of the 'men' in front of him must have heard of his violent reputation since they looked around nervously.
Angelus wasn't big on being intimidated or threatened. "For the record, I don't lurk, I hunt. You seem to know me, but you must not have been important enough for me to remember you."
The leader narrowed his eyes. His Master's idea that Angelus had become more agreeable in recent years was rapidly losing water. 'Doesn't matter, the Master wants him...I'll bring him.'
"We haven't been formally introduced, but my master is well known to you. He's been keeping tabs on you recently and has requested a meeting. We'd prefer if you accept it, but it your don't, we'll insist."
Angel's fists tightened at the implied threat, the knuckles on his right hand had healed, but were still sore. He would have fought, but this would be suicide against so many in such a tight space. 'Fine. I'll play along, for now, until my odds improve.'
"Mr...?" Angel waited for a name to be supplied.
"Call me Roland" the leader offered.
'I'd rather call you dust.' Angel thought in annoyance.
"Roland" he said aloud, "What does this master of yours want from me?"
The vampire smiled with his grotesque fangs bared, "You'll have to ask him. Our Master was an old acquaintance of yours. He's asked to see you again, I was promised you won't be harmed."
Angel laughed inside, 'Bullshit. I could smell this trap with my nose cut off, and underwater.'
He walked a few steps forward, coming nose to nose with the leader, "Fine, let's not keep this 'old acquaintance' waiting then, lead the way."
TBD...